Pablo Álvarez will not fly to the International Space Station at the moment

May 22. () –

ESA has assigned the first two missions for the astronauts of the class of 2022, that of the Spanish Pablo Álvarez, to Sophie Adenot and Raphaël Liégeois.

Both will travel to the International Space Station (ISS) on missions currently planned for 2026.

ESA predicts that both astronaut Pablo Álvarez and his classmates from the class of 2022 embark on missions to the International Space Station before 2030.

This was announced this Wednesday, May 22, by the Director General of the ESA, Josef Aschbacher, at a press conference in Brussels, where the ministers of the ESA Member States are meeting this week to debate Europe’s space future.

“The assignment of Sophie and Raphaël as the next ESA astronauts to fly to the International Space Station marks a major milestone for ESA and its astronaut class of 2022. “It is a tangible result of our commitment to continue a strong European presence in an international context,” said Aschbacher.

While exploration activities are developing at an “unprecedented” pace, the director general of ESA has celebrated that sending two recently graduated astronauts into space “is a crucial step on the path towards preserving European knowledge, guaranteeing the participation long-term investment in Europe in ongoing programs such as Artemis, as well as in any future project involving human spaceflight and exploration“.

With the assignment of Sophie and Raphaël, the first two astronauts of the ESA astronaut class of 2022 will embark on long-duration missions to the International Space Station, with Sophie scheduled to fly first, followed by Raphaël.

“With the assignment of Sophie and Raphaël to the ISS expeditions, We witness the realization of your lifelong dreams and aspirations.which symbolizes both their personal achievements and the collective performance of the team that trained them at the European Astronaut Center,” said ESA’s Director of Humanity and Robotics, Daniel Neuenschwander, highlighting that these two “incredible” people will represent ESA aboard the International Space Station.

Born in France in 1982, Sophie is an engineer, helicopter test pilot and colonel in the French Air and Space Force. “It is a tremendous honor to be selected for this mission! I am truly excited to begin a new part of this journey that will allow me to contribute to scientific research and exploration aboard the International Space Station. And to think that I will be able to do it representing France and Europe before the ESA gives a new dimension to this adventure“, has said.

Raphaël was born in Belgium in 1988 and has a background in biomedical engineering and neuroscience. “Just a month ago, we all got together to celebrate the end of our basic training and now I have the opportunity to be assigned a mission to the ISS. I just can’t wait to take on this new challenge ahead and be able to use Up there, the colors of Belgium and ESA!”he stressed.

As they advance to the later phases of pre-assignment and mission-specific training, Sophie and Raphaël will gain deeper knowledge than that acquired during basic astronaut training, focusing on specific tasks and experiments that will be performed in space.

During their missions on the Space Station, ESA astronauts will carry out numerous scientific experiments, many of them originating in Europe, carry out medical research, contribute to Earth observation and will participate in operational and maintenance tasks of the Space Station.

PABLO ÁLVAREZ, GRADUATE IN APRIL AFTER ONE YEAR OF TRAINING

Pablo Álvarez Fernández graduated as an astronaut on April 22 along with his classmates Sophie Adenot, Rosemary Coogan, Raphaël Liégeois and Marco Sieber after successfully completing basic training at the European Astronaut Center in Cologne (Germany).

Along with them, the Australian candidate Katherine Bennell-Pegg concluded her basic astronaut training, who has trained alongside ESA candidates and graduated alongside the class of 2022.

Pablo Álvarez (1988), a native of León, is a space engineer. He began the one-year basic training course at the European Astronaut Center in Cologne in April 2023 after being selected from more than 22,500 candidates from ESA Member States in November 2022.

ESA is made up of 22 Member States: Austria, Belgium, Czech Republic, Denmark, Germany, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Hungary, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, United Kingdom, Romania, Sweden and Switzerland. Slovakia, Slovenia, Latvia and Lithuania are associate members.