The European Space Agency announced on Wednesday that 22,589 people, including 1,019 Belgians, have applied to become astronauts on the ESA. These are provisional figures, which Director General Joseph Ashbacher called ‘the most historic’.
Friday is the last day for residents of ESA member states and associate member states to apply for astronauts. ESA is looking for four to six professional astronauts, twenty reserve astronauts affiliated with a country or a company or an organization, a ‘para astronaut’ or a physically challenged astronaut.
In all, there were 22,589 candidates from all member states and associate member states, which is 268 percent more than the previous selection in 2008 (8,413). A total of 5,419 women applied, 421 percent more than in 2008, and they make up 24 percent of the total. In the previous ‘astronaut class’ system, it was 15.5 per cent with 1,287 candidates.
There are 257 candidates for the ‘Prostroneot Facility’ program, including 60 women.
Of all the candidates, 785 were men and 234 women (23 percent of the total) from Belgium. This equates to 88,440 candidates per one million population, the ESA estimates.
With 7,137 candidates, France has the highest effort for space travel, followed by Germany (3,700), the United Kingdom (1,979) and Italy (1,860). In sixth place is Belgium.
Ten applications for the Paradronat program came from Belgium: eight men and two women.
Six selection rounds
About 1,500 candidates can participate in the second of six phases with psychological tests. There will be the last forty remaining interviews in the final exam round. ESA expects to complete the entire process by the fall of 2022.
Coincidentally, due to the wave of retirement from here between 2030, Ashbacher insisted that there would be about five hundred vacancies in the ESA.
