ESA's New Astronaut Graduates - Thomas Pesquet

Thomas Pesquet


European Space Agency Astronaut

Personal data

Born in Rouen, France, on 27 February 1978. Pesquet is a black belt in judo and enjoys basketball, jogging, swimming, squash and outdoor sports, such as mountain biking, kite surfing, sailing, skiing and snowboarding. He also has extensive experience in scuba diving and sky diving. His other interests include travelling, playing the saxophone and reading.

Education

Pesquet graduated from the Lycée Pierre Corneille in Rouen, France, in 1998.

In 2001, he received a master’s degree from the École Nationale Supérieure de l’Aéronautique et de l’Espace 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 Air Transport Pilot License-Instrument Rating (ATPL-IR).

Experience

From April to September 2001, Pesquet was a trainee engineer with Thales Alenia Space in Cannes, France, where he developed a satellite system pre-dimensioning tool using concurrent engineering techniques.

From October 2001, he worked as a spacecraft dynamics engineer on remote sensing missions for GMV S.A. in Madrid, Spain.

Between 2002 and 2004, Pesquet worked at the French space agency, CNES, as a research engineer on space mission 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, on cross-support topics.

A private pilot, he was selected in 2004 for Air France's 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.

Pesquet was selected as an ESA astronaut in May 2009 and graduated on 22 November 2010.