After more than six months in orbit, Thomas Pesquet is back on Earth. Arriving last April, the four astronauts bid farewell to the ISS.
“A bittersweet feeling”
Thomas Pesquet spoke of a “bittersweet feeling” at the thought of leaving such a “magical, almost impossible to reach place that gives you superpowers.” . The French astronaut and three other teammates landed on Tuesday, November 9, around 4:33 a.m, off Florida . They had left the International Space Station the day before aboard a SpaceX spacecraft. The Dragon capsule hatch was opened and the first images of Thomas Pesquet showed him, still sitting on board in his spacesuit, waving a thumbs up. The capsule then circled the space station for about an hour and a half, enough time for the astronauts to photograph it outside. Thomas Pesquet was responsible for these photos. The astronauts were then taken out one by one, Thomas Pesquet last. Like the others, he was first placed on a stretcher as a precaution.
A landing in Florida for Thomas Pesquet
The landing aboard the Dragon capsule off Florida was a first for the French astronaut. During his previous mission from 2016 to 2017, he landed in the Kazakh steppes with a Russian Soyuz vessel. In the wake of the landing, a helicopter will bring the astronauts back to dry land, from where they will board a plane for the NASA Space Center in Houston, Texas. Thomas Pesquet expected in Germany. After rapid medical tests in Houston, the French astronaut will fly to Cologne, where the European Astronaut Center is located. For three weeks, it will then be subjected to a battery of scientific tests, intended to observe the effect of a long stay in orbit on the human body. Then the astronaut will take a little vacation.
