posted 04-29-2020 09:58 AM               

Name Thomas' next space mission!

ESA astronaut Thomas Pesquet is due to fly to the International Space Station in 2021 and will soon begin training at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston, USA after finishing a training session at the European Astronaut Centre in Cologne, Germany. We have the operational side covered... but we need your help to find the name of the mission!

Thomas is a member of ESA's astronaut class of 2009, and first flew to the Space Station in 2016 for his Proxima mission. Now he needs your help to find a suitable name for his next trip to space – a six-month mission filled with science experiments and research in microgravity and Space Station maintenance.

The name of an astronaut mission is one of its most iconic elements. It embodies the mission's purpose, reflects the astronaut's personality and is referenced anytime ESA reports on the astronaut's training and work in space.

Finding the name will be the first step in creating a patch that Thomas will wear on official astronaut outfits and, as such, should be: easy to pronounce in most languages (including English and French), short enough to figure on a logo, and original enough to capture the uniqueness of a space mission.

As well as being directly involved in European spaceflight history, the winner of this naming contest, proposed by ESA in partnership with France's space agency CNES, will received a signed mission patch that will be flown on the International Space Station with Thomas.

Are you feeling inspired? Send us your submission by midnight Tuesday 12 May CEST and the result could be out of this world.

• Participants from any country may submit a mission name for consideration. Minors must also complete the Parental Permission section of the form.

• The submitted mission name must not be a proper noun unless it holds a widely known signification such as a mythological name.

• The submitted mission name must be a single word without spaces, dashes or symbols, in the Latin alphabet.

• The winner will be selected during summer 2020 and notified as soon as possible thereafter.

posted 07-27-2020 11:24 AM            

Excited to announce the name and patch for my next Space Station mission tomorrow... Hope you all like it too!

posted 07-28-2020 08:59 AM               

Alpha mission patch

ESA astronaut Thomas Pesquet's Alpha mission patch.

Designed by ESA's graphic artists, the Alpha patch features a rocket launch – the most dramatic moment in any space mission. Around the patch are 17 colored slots representing the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals.

At the top, the International Space Station is stylized in the colors of the French flag. Ten stars sparkle in the background, evoking the Centaurus constellation, and the number of French citizens who have flown to space.

The name of Thomas's second mission to the International Space Station was selected from over 27,000 entries to an ESA competition. The first to submit this name was Christelle de Larrard from Mios, Gironde, France.

"There were many reasons to choose Alpha as a mission name," says Thomas. "It connects to my first mission, Proxima, as the stars belong to the same system close to Earth, and therefore convey the same idea of proximity (such as space research for people on Earth) and an idea of continuation in my work. Alpha, a Greek letter, is also widely used in mathematics, science and technology. And, as the first letter of the alphabet, it is often synonymous with the excellence we try to achieve in space exploration."

Alpha was also the original denomination of the International Space Station, and is still used today as its radio call sign. The word is pronounced the same in almost every language, resulting in a simple yet meaningful mission name for the first astronaut to fly on a new generation of US crewed spacecraft.