After a year in Cologne for basic training, the French astronaut is currently at the NASA space center in Houston, Texas.
“It’s going to be intense and I’m ready to move mountains!” This is how Sophie Adenot approaches her next major challenge, on the X network, Wednesday May 22, after the announcement of her mission for the International Space Station (ISS) in 2026. Just one month after receiving her diploma of an astronaut at the end of his “basic training” at the astronaut center in Cologne (Germany), the 41-year-old Frenchwoman is already at the space center of NASA, the American space agency, in Houston (Texas), to continue her training. Franceinfo summarizes what awaits him during this new phase called “specific training”, which will take him until the key deadline of 2026.
It will validate multiple qualifications
To be able to leave, “you have to acquire all the qualifications, from the most basic to the most sophisticated”exposes Sophie Adenot to franceinfo. “We will start with qualification for spacewalks,” spacewalks, outside of the International Space Station, called in English “extravehicular activities” or by the acronym EVA. “It’s a block of five to six months where we train in the swimming pool”continues the Frenchwoman.
If she has already completed pool sessions during her basic training, the next ones will be much more advanced. For the moment, she is following “theorical class”. “The first pool training is not for now, it will come in a few weeks.” Astronauts don’t spend several months just on EVAs. But it is a qualification which takes a lot of energy, a lot of time (each dive in the pool takes a day) and which is important for the maintenance of the station, notes to franceinfo Frank De Winne, director of the center European Union of Astronauts, in Cologne. “It’s one of the most intense workouts”, he insists. A few years ago, Thomas Pesquet trained in one of the central NASA basins during his preparation for his 2021 mission.
This section on spacewalks is just one qualification among many. “Almost all systems on the ISS require one”, emphasizes to franceinfo Frank De Winne. He mentions in particular those relating to navigation or the activation of the robotic arm of the ISS. A technological tool that is used for various crucial tasks, such as capturing cargo ships that come to resupply the ISS and then empty its waste. This is what this video shows of a maneuver carried out in February.
Sophie Adenot has already familiarized herself with this tool in Cologne, as she then showed it on social networks, equipped with a virtual reality headset. The Frenchwoman specified that this robotic arm was equipped with seven rotary junctions.
She must become familiar with 15,000 different procedures
“We learned that there were 15,000 procedures to master, to understand, to be able to be operational on board the ISS”, specifies Sophie Adenot to franceinfo. Generally speaking, during specific training, “we go deeper into the details of the nominal procedures [quand aucun problème n’est à signaler] and emergency on board the ISS”she commented when announcing her mission.
“For astronauts, the smallest task goes through a procedure. It is obviously impossible to memorize them all”, notes Frank De Winne. On the other hand, they must know them or, as much as possible, review them at least once during training so as not to completely discover them once in space, he explains. Among the 15,000 to know, the emphasis is on those which concern breakdowns.
Among the lot, some are more restrictive than others. The series of procedures for loading and unloading a cargo ship is, for example, long and can take half a day or even a day, to be applied, underlines Frank De Winne. “It’s not like opening the door of a truck. You have to check the watertightness of the station, that of the vehicle, check if particles are not floating in the cargo, if nothing has come loose during the flight “he lists, without being exhaustive.
She will learn to work with the members of her crew
Space is a collective adventure. Manned flight too. For the moment, Sophie Adenot does not know the members of her crew, but she must meet them soon, in the coming months, because it is planned during the specific training that the crews train together as much as possible to get to know each other, create a bond, perhaps some automatisms.
“In daily work within the station, the astronauts are relatively alone, except for special tasks such as with the robotic arm or spacewalks, which are done in pairs”recalls Frank De Winne.
“Where we really have to work as a team is during emergencies. It’s a very large part of the training because in these moments, it’s not the flight director, who is on the ground, who directs. Authority is transferred to the commander on board the ISS.”
Frank De Winne, director of the Cologne astronaut centerat franceinfo
“There, we have to react quickly and really work as a team”, insists Frank De Winne, with clearly established priorities: first ensuring that all members on board the station are well and safe, then seeking to preserve the good condition and proper functioning of the ISS. Finally, look at what can be saved from current experiments.
She will train in scientific manipulations
During the six months that she will spend aboard the ISS, Sophie Adenot will probably conduct around 150 scientific experiments. Nothing is established at the moment. “Normally, the scientific program is more or less fixed a year before the flightexplains Frank De Winne. That’s when she’ll start training.” to be able to carry out the requested manipulations as best as possible.
“The International Space Station is a science laboratory. It’s just the location that’s different”, explained to franceinfo Rémi Canton, project manager of the Alpha mission with Thomas Pesquet. An astronaut aboard the ISS ultimately finds himself wearing the hat of a laboratory assistant, a design engineer: he conducts experiments for other scientists, but in Earth orbit, 400 km from the ground.