Thomas Pesquet

Thomas Gautier Pesquet born 27 February 1978 in Rouen is a French aerospace engineer pilot European Space Agency astronaut and actor Pesquet was selected by ESA as a candidate in May 2009 and he successfully completed his basic training in November 2010 From November 2016 to June 2017 Pesquet was part of Expedition 50 and Expedition 51 as a flight engineer Pesquet returned to space in April 2021 on board the SpaceX Crew Dragon for a second sixmonth stay on the ISS Pesquet was born in Rouen France and considers Dieppe his hometown He is the younger of two brothers Pesquet is a black belt in judo and lists basketball jogging swimming and squash as his favourite sports He is an outdoor and adventure activities enthusiast and enjoys mountain biking kite surfing sailing skiing and mountaineering He also has extensive experience with and holds advanced licenses in both scuba diving and parachuting His other interests include travelling playing the saxophone and reading He is a supporter of the French football team as well as the French rugby team and the Stade Toulousain Pesquet graduated from the Lycée Pierre Corneille in Rouen France in 1996 In 2001 he received a masters degree from the École nationale supérieure de laéronautique et de lespace in Toulouse France majoring in space systems and space vehicle mechanics He spent his final year before graduation at the École Polytechnique de Montréal Canada as an exchange student on the Aeronautics and Space Master Pesquet graduated from the Air France flight school in 2006 This led to an Airline Transport Pilot LicenseInstrument Rating ATPLIR He speaks French English Spanish Chinese German and Russian and is a member of the French Aeronautics and Astronautics Association 3AF and of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics AIAA From October 2001 Pesquet worked as a spacecraft dynamics engineer on remote sensing missions for GMV SA in Madrid Spain Between 2002 and 2004 Pesquet worked at the French space agency CNES as a research engineer on space missions autonomy He also carried out various studies on future European ground segment design and European space technology harmonization From late 2002 he was a representative of CNES at CCSDS the Consultative Committee for Space Data Systems working on the topic of crosssupport between international space agencies A private pilot he was selected in 2004 for Air Frances flight training programme He went on to become a commercial pilot for the French airline where he started flying the Airbus A320 in 2006 He has logged more than 2000 hours flying time on various commercial airliners and has qualified as a typerating flight instructor on the A320 and as a Crew Resource Management instructor In 2018 Pesquet gained his Airbus A310 type rating and is qualified as a Novespace ZeroG aircraft pilot Pesquet was selected as a European Space Agency ESA astronaut in May 2009 He joined ESA in September 2009 and successfully completed Astronaut Basic Training in November 2010 Pesquet is the youngest member of the European Astronaut Corps and the last of the ESA astronaut class of 2009 to arrive in space Source Article Thomas Pesquet from Wikipedia in English licensed under CCBYSA 30