European Astronaut Corps

They can be assigned to various projects both in Europe (at ESTEC, for instance) or elsewhere in the world, at NASA Johnson Space Center or Star City.

This Soviet co-operation programme, known as Intercosmos, primarily involved the participation of Eastern bloc countries.

In 1982, however, Jean-Loup Chrétien became the first non-Communist Bloc astronaut on a flight to the Soviet Salyut 7 space station.

STS-9 marked the beginning of an extensive ESA/NASA joint partnership that included dozens of space flights of ESA astronauts in the following years.

French astronaut Thomas Pesquet is the member of the corps who has accumulated the most time in space with 396 days, 11 hours and 34 minutes.

[2] On 3 April 2008, ESA director general Jean-Jacques Dordain announced that recruiting for a new class of European astronauts will start in the near future.

40 or so candidates head to formal interviews to select four new members to European Astronaut Corps.

Thanks to their involvement with NASA's Orion programme, ESA will receive three flight opportunities for European astronauts to the Lunar Gateway.

NASA trained and flew astronauts from allied nations on the Space Shuttle, especially as payload specialists for scientific missions such as Spacelab.