Published32 minutes ago
The European Space Agency’s latest intake of astronauts have completed their basic training.
The group of five received their graduation certificates at a special ceremony in Cologne in Germany
They must now prepare for a specific flight assignment to the space station or perhaps even to the Moon.
UK interest is in the Northern Irish astrophysicist Dr Rosemary Coogan, who becomes only the second Esa astronaut after Tim Peake.
The former Army Air Corps major was in the class of 2009.
Dr Coogan described her graduation as the fulfilment of a long-held ambition.
“I personally have always been fascinated in space, and now to find out that as an astronaut, you can go there and you can do this fantastic science and bring that back – it’s everything come together as a dream,” she said.
Dr Coogan and her colleagues – Sophie Adenot (France), Pablo Álvarez Fernández (Spain), Raphaël Liégeois (Belgium) and Marco Sieber (Switzerland) – were singled out from more than 22,500 applicants as having the “right stuff” to go into space.
The past 12 months have seen them receive medical, robotics and survival training; experience weightlessness in a special plane and be hurled around in a centrifuge to simulate the forces of a rocket launch.
Tradition requires the new class have a nickname given to them by the previous class.
This new group will therefore be known as “The Hoppers”, a reference to “hopping” back and forth between different classrooms during their training.
“Some of our new
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