European Astronaut Corps

The European Astronaut Corps is the group of active astronauts of the European Space Agency ( ESA). Headquarters of the corps, which currently consists of 14 members, is the European Astronaut Centre in Cologne. Often, the astronauts are, however, used at various places in the world, such as the European Space Research and Technology Centre ( ESTEC ) in Noordwijk, at the Johnson Space Center of NASA in Houston, or at the Yuri Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center in Russia's Star City.

History

ESA began its manned spaceflight program with Spacelab, for 1978, the first ESA astronaut were selected. The first three astronauts who were selected were the German Ulf Merbold, the Dutchman Wubbo Ockels and the Swiss Claude Nicollier.

Ulf Merbold flew in 1983 with the Space Shuttle mission STS -9 was the first into space. Wubbo Ockels flew two years later. Claude Nicollier had 14 years to wait for his first mission STS -46, now he has but obsolete with four space flights the other.

The second ESA selection took place in 1992 because of two major ESA projects: Hermes ( set now ) and Columbus. More than 22,000 prospective and including 5,500 serious candidates there were for this astronaut selection. Six candidates were finally selected, including one already selected by the French space agency CNES astronaut Jean- François Clervoy from France. The other five were Thomas Reiter from Germany, Maurizio Cheli from Italy (1996 retired ), Pedro Duque of Spain, Christer Fuglesang from Sweden and the first woman, Marianne Merchez from Belgium, but left soon and did not fly into space.

On 25 March 1998, the ESA Council of Ministers decided to form a common European Astronaut Corps. The aim was to improve the organization within the program for the International Space Station (ISS). Germany and France, which had the only European countries own astronaut corps, approved the merger as a necessary step to the coordination of astronauts to optimize. The decision of the ESA Council of Ministers included the creation of a corps of 16 astronauts ( four from Germany, France and Italy and four for the other Member States). The integration process should be accompanied by the dissolution of the National Astronaut Corps until the end of June 2000. The agreement does not preclude a Member State for a national space project can draw on astronauts of the European Astronaut Corps.

Other astronauts were in the years 1998-2000 to the European Astronaut Corps. On April 10, 2008, ESA announced that an enlargement of the astronaut group, which was now shrunk to eight members, was planned. The competition was open from May 19 to June 18, 2008 people from all 17 Member States of ESA. By the application deadline 8413 serious applications had been received from all ESA member countries. Of this, 22.1% in France, 21.6% in Germany, 11.0% in Italy and 4.2% from Switzerland. Of all the applications were only 1430 women. Subsequently, 918 people were for the psychological test of the first stage selected of which 192 were invited to the second stage of testing. The new astronaut group was introduced on 20 May 2009 at ESA's headquarters in Paris the public. As new astronauts begin the Italian Samantha Cristoforetti, the German Alexander Gerst, Andreas Mogensen from Denmark, Italy's Luca Parmitano, Briton Timothy Peake and Thomas Pesquet the Frenchman basic training from 2013 to missions to the ISS and possibly to deny the moon.

Members

The European Astronaut Corps currently consists of 14 Astronauts: four from Italy, three from France, two from Germany, as well as one from Belgium, Denmark, Great Britain, the Netherlands and Sweden.

Active members

  • STS -66
  • STS -84
  • STS -103
  • Soyuz TM -34 TMA-1/Sojus ( ISS Odissea )
  • Soyuz TMA -15 ( ISS Expedition 20/21)
  • Soyuz TM -26 TM-27/Sojus ( Mir- Pegase )
  • STS -122 ( ISS Expedition 16)
  • STS -116 (ISS - C)
  • STS -128
  • Soyuz TMA -3 TMA-4/Sojus (ISS - DELTA )
  • Soyuz TMA- 03M ( ISS Expeditions 30 and 31)
  • STS -120 ( ISS Esperia )
  • Soyuz TMA -20 ( ISS Expedition 26/27) ( ISS MagISStra )
  • STS -55 ( D2 mission )
  • STS -122
  • Soyuz TM -33 TM-34/Sojus (ISS -Marco Polo)
  • Soyuz TMA -5 TMA-6/Sojus ( ISS Aeneid )
  • STS -134

Former members

  • STS -75
  • Soyuz TM -24 TM-25/Sojus ( Mir97 )
  • STS -75
  • STS -100
  • Soyuz TM -23 TM-24/Sojus ( Mir- Cassiopée )
  • Soyuz TM -32 TM-33/Sojus (ISS Andromède )
  • Soyuz TM -16 TM-17/Sojus ( Mir- Altair )
  • Soyuz TM -29 ( Mir- Perseus )
  • STS -9
  • STS -42
  • Soyuz TM -19 TM-20/Sojus ( Euromir 94)
  • STS -46
  • STS -61
  • STS -75
  • STS -103
  • STS -61 -A ( D1 mission )
  • STS -111
  • Soyuz TM -22 ( Euromir 95)
  • STS-121/STS-116 ( ISS Expedition 13/14) ( ISS astrolabe )
  • STS -99
  • Soyuz TM -14 TM-15/Sojus ( Mir- Antares )
  • STS -93
STS-9 STS-46 STS-66 STS-84 STS-103 Expedition 42 Expedition 43 Frank De Winne Soyuz TMA-1 Soyuz TM-34 Soyuz TMA-15 Soyuz TM-27 Soyuz TM-26 STS-122 STS-128 Expedition 40 Expedition 41 Soyuz TMA-4 Soyuz TMA-3 Soyuz TMA-03M Expedition 30 Expedition 31 Soyuz TMA-18M Soyuz TMA-16M STS-120 Soyuz TMA-20 Expedition 27 Expedition 36 Expedition 37 Hans Schlegel Roberto Vittori Soyuz TM-33 Soyuz TMA-6 Soyuz TMA-5 STS-134 STS-75 STS-95 Reinhold Ewald Soyuz TM-25 Soyuz TM-24 Umberto Guidoni STS-100 Soyuz TM-23 Soyuz TM-32 Soyuz TM-17 Soyuz TM-16 Soyuz TM-29 STS-42 Soyuz TM-20 Soyuz TM-19 STS-61 Philippe Perrin STS-111 Soyuz TM-22 Soyuz TM-15 Soyuz TM-14 STS-93 List of astronauts by year of selection
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