Two French astronauts will travel to space next year under a new deal between France and US company Vast, with one set to remain aboard what would be the world's first commercial space station.
"This confirms France's space ambitions," President Emmanuel Macron said on social media platform X late on Monday, after announcing the deal on the sidelines of a Paris investment conference.
Under the deal, Thomas Pesquet and Arnaud Prost will embark on separate missions lasting around two weeks each, California-based Vast said in a statement.
Prost's first trip to space is planned to take him to the Haven-1 commercial space station, which Vast has been developing. After years of delays, the company insists the station is on course to be deployed next year. Prost would serve as test engineer on the first crewed mission to the station.
"This astronaut mission to a private space station is a world first," France's space agency CNES said.
Pesquet will launch on a separate Vast mission to the International Space Station, which will mark his third stay on the orbital laboratory, where his colleague Sophie Adenot is currently based. He will serve as commander of the mission, which is not scheduled to launch before mid-2027.
The 48-year-old told AFP on Tuesday that he welcomed the opportunity to return to space, though he said his long-term goal remained the Artemis mission to the Moon.
The European Space Agency announced last year that three European astronauts — German, Italian and French — would participate in NASA's Artemis programme, which aims to return humans to the Moon by 2030.
Lunar hopes for 2029
Pesquet said he believed the first opportunity for a Moon mission would come in 2029, adding that a mid-2027 ISS mission would have no impact on those plans.
Both Vast missions will launch on Falcon 9 rockets operated by billionaire Elon Musk's SpaceX. However, the ISS mission will require approval from a panel representing the station's partners, which include NASA, the European Space Agency, Russia's Roscosmos, Japan's JAXA and the Canadian Space Agency.
If approved, it would represent a significant milestone: no non-American has ever commanded a US capsule, according to CNES.
Vast was founded in 2021 by cryptocurrency billionaire Jed McCaleb with the aim of building the world's first commercial space station with Haven-1. The company ultimately hopes to replace the ISS with Haven-2, a larger successor. The ISS, which has been continuously inhabited for more than a quarter of a century, is scheduled to be decommissioned in 2030.
(with AFP)
