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.
September 21, 2022
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.
