Almost daily photos, but also many experiences. Thomas Pesquet, the first Frenchman to have been commander of the International Space Station, returns overnight from Monday to Tuesday aboard the Dragon capsule, renamed Endurance, heading off Florida. Having left on April 23, the 43-year-old Norman will have spent six months on the ISS, thus beating the national record for time spent in space. Six months that he spent more than taking naps in zero gravity.
Four spacewalks
From June 16 to 25, French ESA astronaut Thomas Pesquet carried out 3 spacewalks with NASA astronaut Shane Kimbrough. They installed 2 new solar panels. Thomas Pesquet once again went outside the ISS on September 12, accompanied by Akihiko Hoshide (JAXA), to prepare the installation support for 2 new solar panels which will join the ISS in 2022.
After two sorties carried out during the Proxima mission in 2017, Thomas Pesquet will therefore have six spacewalks. A new record for the French astronaut.
232 scientific experiments
But, more than these spectacular spacewalks, it is the scientific experiments that punctuate Thomas Pesquet’s daily life on the International Space Station. The first to which he has tackled are the GRIP, GRASP, Myotones and TIME experiments which aim, through the realization of several exercises, to study the adaptation of the body and the brain to life in space (hand coordination). eye, adaptation of the nervous system, muscle tone, perception of time, etc.). The Norman thus underwent numerous blood, saliva and urine samples. aiming to understand how the human body reacts to its life in space.
Ultrasound, biology, metallurgy
As NASA tells it on its site, Thomas Pesquet also carried out an experiment on the possibility of manipulating elements without even touching them thanks to “ultrasounds”, non-audible waves. The scientist Pesquet also discovered himself as a metallurgist by working on alloys to improve space fuels.
Raise your blob
Small being neither-vegetal nor-animal, Thomas Pesquet also left on the ISS with four blobs (Physarum Polycephalum). Dehydrated blobs he woke up in September. An experiment that he did not conduct alone because it has been reproduced in more than 4,500 French schools. The mission “Raise your blob” aims to compare the behavior of the organism on Earth and in zero gravity, aboard the International Space Station.
Splendid photos
But above all, the astronaut regaled us with photos of the Earth from space. which he realized, only on weekends in his spare time with a simple Nikon brand camera, well attached with the help of scratchs to prevent them from floating in the ISS.