“I went into countdown mode”, testifies the French astronaut

The French astronaut, guest of France Inter, will go on a mission aboard the International Space Station (ISS) in 2026.

“I went into countdown mode”, testifies Sophie Adenot Monday May 27 on France Inter. The French astronaut will fly in 2026 for a mission aboard the International Space Station. The 41-year-old helicopter pilot completed her training at the astronaut center in Cologne (Germany) in April, and is already at the space center of NASA, the American space agency, in Houston (Texas), to continue her training.

“Two years is tomorrow, because when we know the amount of qualifications, theoretical, operational knowledge, skills that I have to acquire, it will go very, very quickly”, she says. By 2026, it will have more than “15,000 procedures to learn” to carry out its mission aboard the ISS.

She started the module “extra vehicular outings”spacewalks, which are “somewhat considered to be the Holy Grail of all astronauts, because it’s mentally difficult, it’s difficult as a job, as a team, it’s physically difficult”. “You should know that we spend about seven hours outside, with the spacesuit as the only space vehicle that protects us”, she explains. So she did “all the measurements of the hands, the feet, the whole body to have a diving suit that fits you, because in addition, diving suits were designed decades ago and they are more adapted to a male body shape”SO “I also work a lot in sport to build muscle and have sufficient strength to do it, and that represents a little extra challenge as a woman”.

In this module, she also learns how to “know how to operationally handle the navigation computers, the procedures on board the space station” because “when we are up there, in space, there are no mechanics with us”. Unlike the field of aviation, from which it comes, the positions are separated between different professions. “So we are not only pilots in the space vehicle, we are also mechanics, maintainers, etc.”explains the helicopter pilot

In the center of Houston, she also followed survival courses in mountainous or maritime environments, “it’s important because on the way back, if the space vehicle arrives in an unexpected place, because there is an emergency on board and we have to leave quickly, leave the station with the space vehicle, it We may land on Earth, in a place that is far from everything, and we need to know survival skills and how to signal ourselves quickly to allow rescue teams to come and find us easily.”.