The two astronauts Thomas Pesquet and Arnaud Prost will go into space in 2027 as part of an agreement signed between France and the American space company Vast, Emmanuel Macron announced Monday June 1. “This confirms France’s space ambition,” greeted the Head of State on X, after having made this announcement a little earlier on the sidelines of the Choose France summit.
The two French people will participate in different missions, but which will both last “approximately two weeks”, specified the Californian company Vast in a press release. The one involving Thomas Pesquet will be done in partnership with NASA and will have as its destination the International Space Station (ISS), where he has already stayed twice for more than six months and where another French woman, Sophie Adenot, is currently located.
As for the second flight, it will take Arnaud Prost, who has never been to space before, to the commercial Haven-1 space station that Vast is currently developing. The latter should be deployed in 2027, after several years of delay, according to the company’s current schedule.
“First in the world”
“This astronaut mission to a private station is a first in the world,” commented the National Center for Space Studies (Cnes) on its site. Based in California, the company Vast, which was founded in 2021 by cryptocurrency billionaire Jed McCaleb, aims to create the first commercial space station with Haven-1.
The latter will precede the creation of a larger station, Haven-2, which Vast wishes to commission to replace the International Space Station (ISS). This scientific laboratory, continuously occupied for more than 25 years, is in fact set to end in 2030, paving the way for the era of private space stations.
With this agreement, France therefore offers itself a new stay in the ISS, the third for Thomas Pesquet, as well as another in the first station of this new type, while Sophie Adenot is still in the ISS, 400 kilometers from Earth. France thus becomes the only European country to have three active astronauts, according to Cnes.
“This agreement shows the recognition by the international community of French expertise in manned flight, both that of our astronauts and that of the French teams in the preparation and execution of missions,” he welcomed.
SpaceX ship
For the two announced missions, Vast intends to use SpaceX Falcon-9 rockets and the Crew Dragon spacecraft, the only American device currently authorized to transport astronauts to the ISS. The company specified that Thomas Pesquet should be commander of the mission in which he will participate, and which should be launched no earlier than summer 2027.
This decision will, however, be subject to approval by the committee in charge of ISS operations, on which sit representatives of NASA, ESA, the Russian agency Roscosmos and the Japanese JAXA and Canadian ASC. “If this decision were taken, it would be a great first: never has a non-American astronaut been in command of an American capsule,” notes Cnes.
Aged 48, this aeronautical engineer, airline pilot and accomplished sportsman, appreciated for his good nature, helped revive the general public’s interest in space during his stays on the ISS.
