2024-04-22 10:42:07
Pablo Álvarez already has wings. The Leonese has taken over from Pedro Duque and this Monday he became an astronaut for the European Space Agency (ESA), the first Spaniard in more than three decades. The graduation ceremony was held at the training center in Cologne (Germany), where he completed part of his basic training for a year. Along with Álvarez, four other European astronauts have graduated: the French Sophie Adenot, the British Rosemary Coogan, the Belgian Raphaël Liégeois and the Swiss Marco Sieber. Australian Katherine Bennell-Pegg has also done so for a collaboration with her country’s space agency.
“It’s a great day for everyone, a very special moment,” said Josef Aschbacher, director general of ESA, a few minutes before handing over their wings to the astronauts of the new class, who, per an agency tradition, have been baptized with a nickname by the members of the previous course. In this case, they have chosen the ‘Hoppers’, which refers to the ambition of the new astronauts to jump in low gravity, first on missions to the International Space Station (ISS) and later, if necessary, in the exploration of the Moon.
The five European astronauts were chosen from among 22,500 candidates, from which twelve reserve members also came out, including the Spanish Sara García Alonso. Selected for training in 2022 at the ESA Ministerial Council, the group began their basic training in April 2023, first in Cologne and then at various facilities around the world, including NASA headquarters in Houston. Over a year, they completed a program covering knowledge in spacecraft, spacewalks, flight engineering, robotics and life support systems, survival and medical training. They have also learned Russian.
Focused on the ISS
«I remember when I wanted to be an astronaut. “I was looking at the Moon when I was four or five years old in my small town in the mountains of Spain and someone told me that there were people who had walked on the Moon but I was disappointed to hear that there were only twelve of them and I thought it had to be something more common,” Álvarez said during the ceremony.
However, he stopped thinking about it because he believed that “it couldn’t happen.” «It wasn’t until the ESA selection that it started to enter my head again and I tried very hard to get it. Today we are one step closer,” she noted.
In his speech, the Spaniard has for the moment ruled out being a candidate for the Artemis missions, the program run by NASA to explore the Moon. «We are now focusing on preparing a mission for the International Space Station (ISS), which is already quite challenging. We will see what the future brings us », he said.
Aschbacher has also indicated that space exploration is a priority for ESA, “a train that cannot be missed.” “You are ESA’s ambassadors in space and what we do together is extremely important,” she told the new astronauts, to whom he assured that they will all have flight opportunities. “It won’t happen before 2026 but we are on our way.”
“The day you sit on top of a rocket will also be a great day,” Frank de Winne, head of the Cologne astronaut center, reminded them. «There are fun moments and others not so much. I’m not going to go into details here, but every Saturday you have to clean the ISS and that’s also your job,” he joked.
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