After an initial selection, the European Space Agency (ESA) brings together more than a thousand candidates this week to submit them to selection tests to become an astronaut. “We are going a little more in the hard”, explains Olivier Sanguy, editor-in-chief of space news at the Cité de l’Espace in Toulouse, invited Monday, December 6 on franceinfo.
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After a selection “mainly on file” for “see if the age or training criteria have been retained”, 1,500 postulants who presented a candidacy were invited. Now they have to pass psychotechnical tests. “We are going to look for logic”, explains Olivier Sanguy. “There may be sequences of numbers that we complete. It’s quite classic. And then, there are some which are a little more complicated. Moreover, we do not know them all because if people know too well in advance what to expect, we take away some of the adaptability we are looking for “.
At the end of these tests “Should emerge 800 people. Then there will be individual interviews which are extremely important because personality is really essential for an astronaut”. ESA is looking for each candidate “someone extremely sociable, who knows how to work in a team and who still knows how to learn”, details the editor-in-chief. Another sought-after quality: composure. “The unforeseen is part of space. We saw it during Thomas Pesquet’s mission, with the new Russian module which made the ISS (International Space Station) make a complete revolution”remembers Olivier Sanguy. At the end of these personality interviews, around 200 people will be selected.
In 2022, the process will continue with medical tests to finally retain between two and four candidates. “They will undergo training, then, later, will be assigned to missions”. This recruitment, despite its selectivity, continues to attract many young Europeans. “In 2008, there were 8,400 applications for all ESA member countries. There we are at 22,000!”, recalls Olivier Sanguy, insisting on the fact that “France is in the lead with 7,317 candidates”. Nevertheless, it lags behind as a percentage of women, with only 23.3% of the total number of applicants. Estonia is the country with the most female candidates: 38.6%.