On Wednesday, September 21st (2022), the European Space Agency announced that they had selected a team of seven astronauts to train for NASA’s Artemis missions to the moon – but only one of them will have the chance to become the first European to walk on the Moon’s surface.
The candidates are:
- France’s Thomas Pesquet
- Britain’s Tim Peake
- Germany’s Alexander Gerst and Matthias Maurer
- Italy’s Luca Parmitano and Samantha Cristoforetti
- Denmark’s Andreas Mogensen
All have completed at least one mission on board the International Space Station (ISS).
Between all of them, the team has the equivalent of 98 hours of spacewalking and 4.5 years in orbit.
Three of the astronauts will be selected to go to the Lunar Gateway, a planned station that will orbit the moon.
Construction of the Gateway is scheduled to start some time after 2024, during the late 2020s.
Only one of the selected three will actually set foot on the Moon by the end of the decade.
At some point, the ESA will have to decide which of the seven candidates will get to go.
“We’re all candidates and what matters is to go there as a team,” Pesquet told reporters at the International Astronautical Congress in Paris.
“Look, we’re all wearing the same shirt,” he added.
Pesquet, Gerst, Maurer and Parmitano all attended wearing a navy blue polo shirt with ESA and Artemis logos.
Cristoforetti had to video call in from space, where she is currently onboard the ISS after becoming the first European woman to embark on a spacewalk outside the station in July.
Mogensen also spoke over video as he prepares for his own tour onboard the ISS.
Inspiration For Europe
The launch of the first Artemis mission, which will not have any astronauts on board, and aims to test out a new rocket system and the Orion capsule, has been delayed twice due to technical glitches including a fuel leak.
NASA is now targeting September 27 for launch.
The following mission, Artemis II, will take astronauts to the Moon without landing on its surface, while the third – aiming to launch in 2025 – will see the first people set foot on the moon since 1972.
The ESA is providing the European Service Module on the Orion capsule.
“During this decade, three ESA astronauts will fly to the Lunar Gateway – our permanent station we’re building around the moon,” David Parker, ESA’s director of human and robotic exploration said.
“And if all that goes well, by the end of this decade we’ll be ready to send the first European astronaut to the moon,” he added.
Putting a European on the Moon would be “something inspiring for Europe, a strong signal to say that ‘here we are, taking our place in the space world, in a cooperative way’,” Pesquet said.
“With a European on the moon, I hope that a united Europe will become more of a reality that it is today,” Maurer said.
Top image: Hopeful moonwalkers (from left): Germany’s Alexander Gerst, France’s Thomas Pesquet, Italy’s Luca Parmitano and Germany’s Matthias Maurer.
