Space X’s Crew Dragon capsule has now launched to the International Space Station. The rocket took off from Florida (United States) on Wednesday, November 10 at 9 p.m. local time. The journey should take approximately 22 hours.
On board, four astronauts: Raja Chari, Tom Marshbun, Kayla Barron and Matthias Maurer, colleague and friend of Thomas Pesquet, must join the International Space Station to carry out a scientific mission.
The “Cosmic Kiss” mission conceals a story of squared friendship. That tied between two fellow astronauts reflects the friendship between two countries, France and Germany. Thomas Pesquet and Matthias Maurer met ten years ago. The French, an aeronautical engineer by training, was then an airplane pilot. The German, an engineer trained in Nancy, a doctor specializing in materials science, works in a medical technology company.
But both dream of space. For a year, they will answer the same questions, share the same emotions, be faced with the same trials of the very rare selection of astronauts organized by the European Space Agency (ESA). It was in 2009. The previous competition dates back to 1992. Some 8,500 candidates and on arrival, only six faces presented to the public among which a French, Thomas Pesquet, and a German, Alexander Gerst.
His compatriot Matthias Maurer has also passed all the tests but he must be content to be one of the ten finalists. He then thinks his dreams of space are gone.
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The following year, in 2010, Maurer, spotted during the selection, joined the European Space Agency as a support engineer for the six astronauts. A decade of working together forged a strong team spirit and a solid friendship with Thomas Pesquet. He is with him in all his preparations before his first flight on the International Space Station in 2016. Maurer, he trains in caves and on volcanoes to simulate a planetary or lunar exploration, or underwater in a base NASA submarine in the summer of 2016 to prepare for a future mission to Mars.
At the beginning of 2017, the good news arrived when his friend was on board the ISS: Matthias Maurer became the seventh astronaut of the European team. “I am the new one, the young one of the team, says Maurer, yet I am not the youngest. ” Maurer is 51 years old. Pesquet, 8 years his junior, is 43 years old. Same astrological sign: fish. And the German born in the Saar, a German region on the border with France, talks in very good French (or English) with his friend. The German recounts his memories of students in Nancy. “France is important in my history and in my family. I lived there for a year and a half and I have a lot of friends there with whom I have kept in touch, but this is also the case wherever I have studied, in Spain or in England. I studied in Germany too, of course, at the University of Aachen where I got my doctorate. I am a European. “
A German who replaces a French in the ISS: Josef Aschbacher, Director General of ESA, the European Space Agency, is aware of the strength of the symbol. “France and Germany will now symbolically be united in space thanks to our two astronauts Thomas Pesquet and Matthias Maurer, he emphasizes. It is a very strong moment, very important for the friendship and the Franco-German partnership. “
This mission “Cosmic Kiss” – note the subtle presence of ISS in the name of the mission – is a name chosen by Matthias Maurer, it is a declaration of love to space travel. It reflects in these astronauts the passion to learn and to transmit, it also expresses the very beautiful feeling of friendship which binds these two scientists.