Frenchwoman Sophie Adenot, selected for ESA’s new class of European astronauts in November 2022, began her training on Monday at the European Astronaut Center (EAC) in Cologne, Germany. Over the next twelve months, Sophie Adenot will learn everything she needs to fly in space for years to come.
“Of course I want to inspire,” Sophie Adenot replied to BFMTV, when asked about her role as a role model for young people, and in particular for young women who want to pursue scientific careers.
“I do a job of passion. I arrived because the people inspired me, so my role will also be to transmit, so I will do everything possible to be the best possible example ”, she developed.
Learning a whole new job
“I still have everything to learn”, however, added the astronaut candidate and lieutenant colonel of the Air Force, aware that she will have to acquire a significant number of “new skills and theoretical, fundamental and practical knowledge”. “Before my job was to be a pilot, but this new job as an astronaut is completely different,” the French woman admits.
In addition to the theoretical training in Cologne, Sophie Adenot points out that “operational training, survival, swimming pool” are also on the program of her training, during which she will also have to learn to “work in a team”, a necessary quality in working as an astronaut. .
In the BFMTV microphone, the astronaut candidate also explains that the selection committee of the European Space Agency (ESA) was looking for “a certain complementarity of profiles” in this new promotion of future astronauts.
According to her, it is “the operational aspect of her work as a pilot” as well as her quality as an engineer that may have interested the selection committee, while her future colleagues are doctors, researchers or even astrophysicists.
Source: BFM TV
