The European Space Agency announced five new career astronauts as well as
history's first astronaut recruit with a disability on Wednesday after adopting
a record budget to fund its projects.
اضافة اعلان
The two female and three male career astronauts "will start working
immediately,"
ESA director-general Josef Aschbacher told a ministerial
council meeting in Paris.
From more than 22,500 applicants, the agency chose France's Sophie Adenot,
Spain's Pablo Alvarez Fernandez, Britain's Rosemary Coogan, Belgium's Raphael
Liegeois and Switzerland's Marco Sieber.
"I'm European but from the UK," Coogan told the ceremony. Though
Britain has left the European Union, it remains in the ESA.
The new recruits start training next year and are not expected to blast off
into space on a mission until 2026.
They will join the astronauts from the ESA's previous 2009 astronaut class,
which include Britain's Timothy Peake and France's Thomas Pesquet. It is from
that previous class that an astronaut will be selected to go to the Moon as
part of NASA's Artemis mission.
"No one is retiring today," Pesquet said, advising the new
recruits to "hang on tight".
The ESA also announced the first astronaut recruit with a physical
disability, British doctor and Paralympian John McFall, who will join a
separate "parastronaut feasibility programme".
The 41-year-old's right leg was amputated after a motorcycle accident at the
age of 18. He became a sprinter, winning bronze at the 2008 Paralympics.
"It had been quite a whirlwind experience, given that as an amputee I'd
never thought being an astronaut was a possibility," he said.
The ESA also established an astronaut reserve of six women and five men who
passed the selection process and can be called up in future if needed.
- New budget -
The new astronauts were named after two days of tough talks by ministers
from the ESA's 22 member states meeting in Paris to decide on the agency's future
funding.
They settled on a budget of 16.9 billion euros ($17.5 billion) for the next
three years, a 17-percent increase from the 14.5 billion euros agreed at the
last ministerial council meeting in 2019.
But it was well short of the 18.5 billion requested by Aschbacher.
"With inflation being so high, I have to say that I'm very impressed by
this figure," Aschbacher told the meeting.
Aschbacher said the increased funds were necessary for Europe not to
"miss the train" in the face of competition in space from the United
States and China.
French Economy Minister Bruno Le Maire hailed a "great success"
that was "beyond expectations".
Negotiations about each country's contribution continued until the last
moment before the announcement.
The biggest contributors were Germany with 3.5 billion euros, France on 3.25
billion euros and Italy at 3.1 billion euros.
However the total committed remains far below NASA's budget of $24 billion
for 2022 alone.
Earth observation programmes, which monitor climate change back on Earth,
had a six percent funding increase to almost 2.7 billion euros.
Robotic and human exploration's budget jumped 36 percent to 2.7 billion,
while telecommunications rose 19 percent to 1.9 billion euros.
- Rocket boost -
The budget for rocket launcher systems was increased by a third to 2.8
billion euros.
Launchers, which were a subject of delicate negotiations, are crucial for
Europe to be able send missions into space without outside help.
The ESA has struggled to get off the ground since Russia withdrew its Soyuz
rockets earlier this year in response to European sanctions over Moscow's
invasion of Ukraine.
The job has been made more difficult by delays to its flagship Ariane 6
rocket, which was supposed to have its maiden flight in 2020 but will now blast
off at the end of next year.
The ESA has even had to resort to using the Falcon 9 rockets of its rival
SpaceX to launch two upcoming scientific missions.
The negotiations were given a boost on Tuesday when France, Germany and
Italy announced their support for Ariane 6, the smaller Vega-C launcher and
European-made micro and mini launch systems.
The ExoMars mission, which has been left without a ride after Russia
withdrew its rockets, will go ahead with US help, Aschbacher said.
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