The French astronaut will blast off from Cape Canaveral, Florida, aboard the new capsule Crew Dragon Space X.
In nine months, it will begin its “season 2” in the International Space Station (ISS). The French astronaut and the star of the space Thomas Pesquet is currently in full preparations for his new adventure on the ISS, and “very enthusiastic” about the idea of taking off this time with an american vessel.
“The first flight test is still up in the air at the moment, the guys are attached to the space Station and will come back down soon. Then, it will be our turn, around march of next year”, he says in an interview with France Télévisions, which was due to be broadcast in full in the newspaper 20 hours of France 2 on Tuesday night.
For this new mission, dubbed Alpha, the astronaut will fly for a period of six months. At the end of the month of march 2021, it will blast off from Cape Canaveral, Florida, with three other crew members. And for this adventure he will embark on board the new capsule Crew Dragon Space X.
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“I will have the chance to be the first European to fly on this vehicle. It is new, it is modern,” says the astronaut of the european space Agency (ESA), the AFP from the european astronaut Centre in Cologne, where he trains. “It is the american way ! It can stretch its legs, it was not the case in the Soyuz,” said he with France Télévisions. “I think there’s also a attention that has been paid to the visual aspect, which does not exist at all in the Soyuz (…), you know that it was a deposit for SpaceX : it must, to the extent possible, that it would be a little nice.”
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three years ago, for his first mission “Proxima”, the benjamin of the european corps of astronauts had flown to the ISS with a Russian Soyuz rocket from the cosmodrome Baikonur, as all the residents of the Station since 2011. A Russian monopoly which has put an end to the first manned flight of the capsule of the private Space X, may launch to the ISS with two Nasa astronauts. “We are going to reuse the same capsule as the one that is currently on board the Station, it is unheard of ! It’s fun to go in the space with the same vehicle but not at the same time,” says the astronaut.
In the factory of the company Elon Musk in California, it has already been able to test simulators of Crew Dragon in a cockpit futuristic, with its 100% touch-screen tablet. “It is necessary to upset its habits… but we are here to adapt !” commented the engineer and airline pilot. At Space X, “everything is in the same location, the control centre, the people who build the rocket…. We immediately reply to questions,” says-t it.
flight Program “more uncertain”
Unlike Soyuz, a system that is “old but reliable, who shot like a clock”, this new technology phase of development involves a program of flight “more uncertain”, that “has forced us to speed up the rest of the drive, propped up on one year instead of two-and-a-half.” The crisis of the Covid-19 has also messed up the calendar, and the travel is reduced – his training in Japan will take place only in virtual.
On board the “Dragon”, the astronaut 42-year-old will fly with its american counterpart Shane Kimbrough and Megan McArthur, as well as the Japanese Haki Kohoshide. All veterans, like him. On the ISS, they will join the Russians. “I am going to find myself with three or four people with whom I have already stolen… It’s a bit of season 2, with the same characters.”
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“But, as in a series on Netflix, it is necessary to tell another story”. However, the ISS, who will celebrate 20 years of human presence in the space, can “lack of novelty”, concedes he. “We are a bit victims of our own success, having managed this program in a safe way, with scientific results on the long term… there is really no suspense, and in an environment where one has the habit of running, very quickly we are no longer on the front of the stage”.
That was important, because “we are here to do science to it”, he recalls, and the ISS “still has a future”. “No one has clearly not made the tour of the research. First, it is a necessary step to prepare for future missions to Mars or the Moon”, for which he is a candidate – “like all (of his) colleagues”.
Study of the aging brain
“And then the ISS is a laboratory, giving you access to scientific phenomena inaccessible on Earth due to gravity”, argues Thomas Pesquet, who will embark in orbit of stem cells from the brain, to study their accelerated aging in space.
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If he has time after his long days of work, he wants to continue “talking about environment” to the public, as he had done during his first stay in sharing his photos of the Earth from up there, via the social networks. “But I’m not going to open the account Tik Tok !”, certify-t-it.
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The international space Station (ISS), an international laboratory in orbit
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Why “Alpha” ? The name, selected in a contest, refers to Alpha centauri, the stellar system closest to Earth, in the extension of “Proxima”, the star of the same constellation. “Where are the first exoplanets, those we will pick the day where technology will allow”. “It is also the first letter of the Greek alphabet, the symbol of the excellence that we strive for,” he concludes.
