Hopeful moonwalkers (from left): Germany's Alexander Gerst, France's Thomas Pesquet, Italy's Luca Parmitano and Germany's Matthias Maurer JULIEN DE ROSA AFP |
The European Space Agency announced a team of seven astronauts on Wednesday to train for NASA's Artemis mission to the moon -- but only one will have the chance to become the first European to walk on the lunar surface.
The candidates — France's Thomas Pesquet, Britain's Tim
Peake, Germany's Alexander Gerst and Matthias Maurer, Italy's Luca Parmitano
and Samantha Cristoforetti, and Denmark's Andreas Mogensen — have all completed
at least one mission on board the International Space Station.
Between them, the team has the equivalent of 4.5 years in
orbit and 98 hours of spacewalking, ESA communications head Philippe Willekens
told journalists at the International Astronautical Congress in Paris.
Three of the astronauts will be selected to go to the Lunar
Gateway, a planned station that will orbit the moon.
But only one will 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 event 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.
Something inspiring for Europe
The launch of the first Artemis mission, which is uncrewed
and aims to test out a new rocket system and Orion capsule, has been delayed
several times due to technical glitches including a fuel leak. NASA is now
targeting September 27 for launch.
The next mission, Artemis 2, 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, told
AFP.
"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.
Despite deep divisions between Russia and the West over
Moscow's war in Ukraine, on Wednesday a US astronaut and two Russian cosmonauts
blasted off to the ISS on a Russian-operated flight.
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