The 40-year-old Frenchwoman retained in the new promotion of European astronauts claims to be “in a state of mind of incredible enthusiasm” and not to fear “much for the moment”.
The French Sophie Adenot, retained in the new promotion of European astronauts in November, confided, Friday March 10, to have “haste” to start training. This 40-year-old astronaut will begin her training on April 1 at the European Astronaut Center (EAC) in Cologne, Germany, with a course “from 12 to 14 months”, “basic training”. At the end of this first training, one of the five astronauts of the promotion will be selected and will begin a “mission-specific training that usually lasts two years before you can take off”.
It’s a “multidisciplinary and fairly generalist training on all the themes that you will have to tackle as an astronaut: learning medicine, emergency medicine because you have to be able to provide first aid if necessary, understand the space systems on which we’re going to have to operate, a bit of training in the pool, in rescue procedures, etc.”she detailed, at the Cité de l’Espace in Toulouse.
“Energy to spare”
“I’m so looking forward to all of these space adventure experiences, whether it’s working with expert teams, astronauts, training, simulators, trips to Houston, Canada, in Japan to discover the different modules on which we will have to operate…”she said. “What am I dreading? Not much at the moment”she confided, explaining that she was delighted to be on the school benches.
“I’m in a state of mind of incredible enthusiasm, I have energy to spare”she added, at the end of a two-day visit, carried out with the Frenchman Arnaud Prost, selected as a reserve astronaut, in Toulouse, in particular at the National Center for Space Studies (CNES), at ISAE -Supaéro (the aeronautical engineering school they both attended), as well as at Airbus.