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The 2022 European Space Agency Astronaut Group is the latest class of the European Astronaut Corps. The selection recruited five "career" astronauts, 11 "reserve" and one "astronaut with a physical disability". It is the fourth
European Space Agency , owners = , headquarters = Paris, Île-de-France, France , coordinates = , spaceport = Guiana Space Centre , seal = File:ESA emblem seal.png , seal_size = 130px , image = Views in the Main Control Room (120 ...
(ESA) recruitment campaign and the first since 2008 and over 22 thousand applications were received. The selected corps joined the continuing corps of ESA astronauts, those selected in 2009, to perform long-duration spaceflight missions aboard the
International Space Station The International Space Station (ISS) is the largest Modular design, modular space station currently in low Earth orbit. It is a multinational collaborative project involving five participating space agencies: NASA (United States), Roscosmos ( ...
, and "...will form part of the crew for the next missions to the moon in the late 2020s and through the 2030s" – as part of the
Artemis program The Artemis program is a robotic and human Moon exploration program led by the United States' National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) along with three partner agencies: European Space Agency (ESA), Japan Aerospace Exploration Age ...
.


Group members

file:ESA astronaut announcement Class of 2022.webm, Announcement of ESA's new class of astronauts, alt=stage with curtain and two presenters, once the curtain is raised people behind are standing spread out across two rows and are called upon individually to come forward to the front The announcement of the selected candidates took place in Paris on November 23 at the Grand Palais Éphémère, at the conclusion of the 2022 ESA Ministerial Council meeting. Along with the five selected "career astronauts", the campaign recruited a "reserve pool" of astronauts who "...will not be permanent ESA staff, but could have the opportunity to be selected for specific projects, as project astronauts." The campaign also recruited people with a
physical disability A physical disability is a limitation on a person's physical functioning, mobility, dexterity or stamina. Other physical disabilities include impairments which limit other facets of daily living, such as respiratory disorders, blindness, epilepsy ...
through the "parastronaut feasibility project" with the intention, but not guarantee, of spaceflight. File:ESA astronaut announcement Class of 2022 (52519418671).jpg,
Sophie Adenot Sophie Adenot (born 5 July 1982) is a French engineer, helicopter pilot, and astronaut. A French Air and Space Force helicopter pilot with the rank of lieutenant colonel, Adenot became France's first female helicopter test pilot in 2018. In 202 ...

Helicopter test pilot File:ESA astronaut announcement Class of 2022 (52519960003) (cropped).jpg, alt=Pablo Álvarez Fernández Aeronautical engineering,
Pablo Álvarez Fernández Pablo is a Spanish form of the name Paul. People *Pablo Alborán, Spanish singer *Pablo Aimar, Argentine footballer * Pablo Armero, Colombian footballer *Pablo Bartholomew, Indian photojournalist * Pablo Brandán, Argentine footballer *Pablo Bren ...

Aeronautical engineer File:ESA astronaut announcement Class of 2022 (52519689839).jpg, alt=Rosemary Coogan Astronomer, Rosemary Coogan
Astrophysicist File:ESA astronaut announcement Class of 2022 (52519695014).jpg,
Raphaël Liégeois Raphaël Liégeois (born 8 January 1988) is a Belgian-Luxembourgish biomedical engineer and astronaut. Liégeois completed a doctorate at the University of Liège on the functioning of the human brain from 2011 to 2015, and then held post-doctora ...

Neuroscientist File:ESA astronaut announcement Class of 2022 (52518941597).jpg, alt=Marco Alain Sieber Paratrooper and anaesthesiologist,
Marco Alain Sieber Marco may refer to: People * Marco (given name), people with the given name Marco * Marco (actor) (born 1977), South Korean model and actor * Georg Marco (1863–1923), Romanian chess player of German origin * Tomás Marco (born 1942), Spanish ...

Paratrooper and anaesthesiologist
Parastronaut * John McFall Orthopaedic surgeon Reserves


Recruitment

The recruitment campaign was announced at press conferences in February 2021. Applications for the roles of "astronaut" and "astronaut (with a physical disability)" in the ''ESA Directorate of Human and Robotic Exploration Programmes'' were accepted between 31 March and 18 June of that year. The original deadline of May 28 was extended by three weeks due to Lithuania joining ESA as an associate-member of ESA, and its citizens therefore becoming eligible to apply, only a week before the original deadline.


Criteria

Recruits could be a citizen of any ESA member or associate-member state. Women were particularly encouraged to apply — in order to address the
gender gap A gender gap, a relative disparity between people of different genders, is reflected in a variety of sectors in many societies. There exist differences between men and women as reflected in social, political, intellectual, cultural, scientific or e ...
among astronauts — as under 16% of applicants in the previous recruitment campaign were women. The minimum formal criteria included: being a citizen of an ESA member (or associate member) state under the age of 50; being between 150 and 190cm tall (with possible exception under the parastronaut category); a "normal weight" BMI range; fluency in English and another language; a
master's degree A master's degree (from Latin ) is an academic degree awarded by universities or colleges upon completion of a course of study demonstrating mastery or a high-order overview of a specific field of study or area of professional practice.
in the Natural Sciences, Medicine, Engineering, Mathematics/Computer Sciences (plus three years of professional experience), or accreditation as an
experimental test pilot An experiment is a procedure carried out to support or refute a hypothesis, or determine the efficacy or likelihood of something previously untried. Experiments provide insight into cause-and-effect by demonstrating what outcome occurs whe ...
; a "hearing capacity of 25 dB or better per ear"; and a current class 2 pilot's medical certificate. Upon selection, recruits would then receive training in "...the essentials of being an astronaut, survival skills and the Russian language, before moving on to robotics, navigation, maintenance and spacewalks", and then receiving mission-specific training. The types of disability considered for parastronaut program are lower limb deficiency (e.g. due to amputation or congenital limb deficiency), leg length difference, or short stature.


Applicants

Applications from 22,523 candidates were received. They came from all eligible nationalities (including Lithuania), as well as 257 for the parastronaut program. This represented a 2.8x increase in the number of applications received compared to the previous ESA astronaut selection process. Almost five and a half thousand applicants (24%) were women – up from 1287 (15.3%) female applicants in the previous selection process. Estonia had the highest proportion of female applicants (38.6%), while Switzerland had the lowest (17.8%). With over seven thousand applications the largest number of applicants were French citizens, almost twice as many as the next most common applicant citizenship, Germans. It was speculated that the popularity of the call for applicants among French citizens was due to Thomas Pesquet's "Alpha" mission to the ISS beginning while the application period was open. More than a thousand applications were also received from British, Spanish, Italian and Belgian citizens, while less than 100 applications were received from Estonians, Latvians, Lithuanians, Luxembourgers, and Slovenians. ESA stressed that the eventual selection is "irrespective" of national funding of the organisation.


Selection process

The selection process itself proceeds over six stages: # Screening of applicants was undertaken "on the basis of documents submitted, the application form and the screening questionnaire." It was initially expected that approximately 1500 (7%) applicants would be accepted through to stage 2. By the conclusion of the 1st stage in January 2022, 1361 astronaut candidates and 27 parastronaut candidates were invited to the 2nd stage – including at least one man and one woman from every eligible nationality. # Initial tests consisted of "cognitive, technical, motor coordination and personality tests" administered by the
German Aerospace Center The German Aerospace Center (german: Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt e.V., abbreviated DLR, literally ''German Center for Air- and Space-flight'') is the national center for aerospace, energy and transportation research of Germany ...
in Hamburg. # Assessment centre evaluation involved "additional psychometric tests, individual and group exercises and practical tests" administered at the
European Astronaut Centre The European Astronaut Centre (EAC) (German: Europäisches Astronautenzentrum, French: Centre des astronautes européens), is an establishment of the European Space Agency and home of the European Astronaut Corps. It is near to Cologne, Germany, ...
in Cologne. # Medical tests assessed "physical and psychological condition in view of long-duration astronaut missions" administered in Cologne and the Toulouse Space Centre, France. # Panel interview assesses "technical and behavioural competencies" including a
background check A background check is a process a person or company uses to verify that an individual is who they claim to be, and this provides an opportunity to check and confirm the validity of someone's criminal record, education, employment history, and oth ...
. # Final interview with the ESA Director General at the agency headquarters in
Paris Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. ...
.


See also

* NASA Astronaut Group 23


Notes


References


External links

* ESA recruitment websit
YourWayToSpace
an
astronaut application handbook
{{European manned spaceflight European Space Agency personnel Lists of astronauts Human spaceflight programs