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Astronauts

Exploring our Solar System is one of humankind's most exciting adventures. ESA selected its first astronauts in 1978 for the 1983 Spacelab mission on NASA's Space Shuttle. Here you'll find more about our current astronauts – the class of 2009.

Astronaut portrait - Sławosz Uznański. Credits: ESA - A. Conigli
Sławosz Uznański

Grasping for space debris solutions

In preparation for his upcoming mission with Axiom Space, ESA project astronaut Sławosz Uznański is getting to grips with a first taste of space exploration during the most recent ESA parabolic flight campaign.

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Podcasts

ESA astronaut class of 2022: Astro Chat with Marco Sieber and Claude Nicollier

In Episode 11 of this ESA Explores podcast series, we chatted with Switzerland’s first and latest ESA astronauts, Claude Nicollier and Marco Sieber.

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International Space Station

2001: a space odyssey for the first European woman on ISS

On this day in 2001, former ESA astronaut Claudie Haigneré became the first European woman to visit the International Space Station.

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Podcasts

Road to the stars: Training for the Moon at LUNA

In the first episode of the new ESA Explores series, "Road to the stars," we chat with ESA astronaut Matthias Maurer about the LUNA facility, Europe's Moon on Earth.

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Moon

Gaming to the Moon

Meet IMPACT, the game that combines science with resource management and city-building elements. Your main goal is to create a lunar base, one building at a time, while contributing to real science research that will help us go back to the Moon.  During this decade and the next, humankind will return to the Moon for […]

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Astronaut portrait - Sławosz Uznański. Credits: ESA - A. Conigli
Sławosz Uznański

Sławosz Uznański training at the European Astronaut Centre

Project astronaut Sławosz Uznański began his training at the European Astronaut Centre (EAC) in Cologne on 1 September 2023. Over the past months, he has been diligently preparing for his future space mission. Here’s a sneak peek into what these preparations looked like.  Back to the classroom Astronaut training includes many hours of theoretical classes […]

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Astronaut portrait - Sławosz Uznański. Credits: ESA - A. Conigli
Sławosz Uznański

ESA astronaut class of 2022: Astro Chat with Sławosz Uznański

In Episode 10 of this ESA Explores podcast series, we spoke to Sławosz Uznański, an ESA project astronaut from Poland, about his training and preparations for a future mission to space.

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Podcasts

ESA astronaut class of 2022: Astro Chat with Alexander Gerst

In Episode 8 of this ESA Explores podcast series, we chat with ESA astronaut Alexander Gerst about his role as head of astronaut operations at ESA's European Astronaut Centre, guiding the next generation of space explorers on their adventures.

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