British Army air corps Agusta Westland Apache test pilot Timothy Peake has made history as the first UK citizen to be selected to be a space agency’s astronaut
A Major Timothy Mace became backup to Helen Sharman in her Soviet government funded eight-day mission in May 1991 but never flew. Sharman’s mission was not privately funded contrary to various reports
British born NASA astronauts Piers Sellers and Nick Patrick had to become US citizens to become astronauts while Cambridgeshire, England born Michael Foale had dual citizenship for family reasonsSellers and Patrick have been selected for upcoming Space Shuttle flights but as the orbiter fleet is being retired in late 2010 Peake, nor his fellow class mates, will fly on the reusable spaceplane
Instead the new class of ESA astronauts will undergo 18-months of basic training starting from 1 September this year to about March 2011 and then they would likely take on duties supporting manned missions until they are selected and train for an International Space Station mission
ESA also selected a female astronaut, Samantha Cristoforetti, originally from Milan, Italy and a fighter pilot with the Italian air force. Cristoforetti is the second woman to be selected by ESA. The first, Belgian Marianne Merchez, was selected in 1992 but never flew and resigned from the astronaut corps
Today ESA director general Jean-Jacques Dordain said that if an astronaut were selected for a mission at the end of their 18-months of basic training they would not fly for at least 3.5-years after that; probably due to previously scheduled ISS crew rotations. So none of the class of 2009 can expect a flight until September 2014 at the earliest
It is more likely that they will fly in the latter half of the next decade meaning that they may not fly on Russia’s Energia Soyuz TMA spacecraft and may instead make their first flight on the proposed Advanced Crew Vehicle or even NASA’s Orion crew exploration vehicle, or maybe even China’s Shenzhou?
Find the new ESA astronaut class biographies here
