Recently the operations teams behind the upcoming mission of ESA astronaut Thomas Pesquet got together for their pre-launch tag-up. Led by the ESA Columbus Control Centre in Oberpfaffenhofen, Germany, these meetings are held to discuss the mission and run through all the particularities, key events and changes to protocol.
For the first time ever, the meeting was held virtually due to COVID-19 restrictions.
For Thomas Pesquet’s Mission Alpha there was much to talk about. With over 200 investigations planned for Expedition 60, including 12 new European experiments, Thomas and the crew on the International Space Station will be busy. When Thomas arrives as part of Crew-2 on the SpaceX Dragon together with JAXA’s Aki Hoshide, and NASA’s Megan MacArthur and Shane Kimbrough, the Space Station will accommodate 11 astronauts for a short time – five more than the six that was the norm for the last few years. These extra people require more planning and the operations teams need to consider the life support systems, where the astronauts will sleep, and how they will interact with the experiments, as well as their general work schedule.