posted 09-23-2022 07:27 PM               

The candidates — France's Thomas Pesquet, Britain's Tim Peake, Germany's Alexander Gerst and Matthias Maurer, Italy's Luca Parmitano and Samantha Cristoforetti, and Denmark's Andreas Mogensen — have all completed at least one mission on board the International Space Station.

"During this decade, three ESA astronauts will fly to the Lunar Gateway — our permanent station we're building around the moon," David Parker, ESA's director of human and robotic exploration, told AFP.

"And if all that goes well, by the end of this decade we'll be ready to send the first European astronaut to the moon," he added.

posted 01-09-2026 11:38 PM               

A German astronaut will be the first European to fly to the moon with a future NASA-led Artemis mission, the European Space Agency's (ESA) Director General Josef Aschbacher said at the ESA Ministerial Council on Thursday, Nov. 27, 2025 in Bremen, Germany.

Germany is ESA's biggest budget contributor. An Airbus factory in Bremen assembles the European Service Module, which provides propulsion, power and atmosphere regeneration for the Orion space capsule designed to house astronauts during Artemis moon trips. Europe also builds components for the Lunar Gateway, a space station intended to orbit the Moon from 2027. Elements of the Lunar Gateway are being built by consortia led by France and Italy, whose nationals will be on subsequent Artemis flights, Aschbacher said at the conference. It is in exchange for these contributions that ESA secured three seats on the moon-bound trips.

"An ESA astronaut traveling beyond [low Earth orbit] for the first time will be a huge inspiration and source of pride for their country and for Europe at large," Aschbacher said at the conference.

Germany currently has two experienced astronauts among the ESA astronaut corps — 55-year old Matthias Maurer and 49-year-old Alexander Gerst. Both have spent months at the International Space Station. Germany also has two astronauts in ESA's reserve team: 36-year-old Amelie Schoenenwald and 40-year-old Nicola Winter. Neither of them, however, has flown to space yet.