Looking back at an Astronaut's Mission

 

When ESA Astronaut Thomas Pesquet returned from his Alpha mission, we were happy.  He'd done so much work for us - and our only regret was that, due to scheduling issues with the commercial/soyuz planning, we couldn't use him more. 

During his debrief in January, he asked us, "what are the results from my mission?" 

The Incrment Manager said, "It's too soon for us to know. You just came back." 

"What about my Proxima mission...in 2017?" said Thomas. 

I remembered Thomas' Proxima mission. I’d just come on board at ESA and was part of the team monitoring science and tracking Utilisation crew-time. At the time, I was so struck by his dedication to the mission, by his “can-do” attitude, and how he always gave us more than we asked for, more than we could afford with our limited budget. After many more years of watching operations, I’ve seen many dedicated crew members, but he stands out. 

The Proxima Mission of ESA Astronaut Thomas Pesquet began with the launch of the 49 Soyuz (49S) from the Baikonur Cosmodrome on 17 November 2016 (GMT322) at 20:20 GMT. Following a nominal 34-orbit rendezvous, the 49S docked with the Rassvet module on the International Space Station on 19 November 2016 (GMT 324).  Along with ESA Crewmember Pesquet were Russian crewmember Oleg Novitsky and US crewmember Peggy Whitson. The Proximia mission concluded on 02-June 2017 (GMT153) after Pesquet spent 196 days in low earth orbit. 

There were forty ESA objectives associated with the Proxima mission – many of which were performed directly by Thomas Pesquet. These included human research payloads as well as various investigations in biology and biotechnology, earth and space sciences, educational activities, physical and materials sciences, technology development, and facility maintenance activities. 

I started pulling the thread on Thomas' request and discovered that there really wasn’t a way to easily give him what he asked for. We have agency resources to plan and execute missions – but this is our focus, and we don’t have a ready way to look behind us and systematically collect the remarkable things that came out of our work. Nobody has the “spare” time to manage this kind of project. However, I thought I could at least assemble existing reports and put them together for him. But even these reports were scant. I reached out to ESA’s science team – and they agreed to work with me, to let me bother the scientists, and to try and find answers. As the scientists started to respond, their answers brimmed with enthusiasm and results, and with gratitude for the efforts that had gone into achieving them. A picture began to emerge: a view of the tremendous impact his work has had. 

The report is finished now.... at 70,000 words. Quite a feat. It's gone through the review process and I'm trying to get the reviewer comments incorporated into the final document. I'm trying to get it approved for public release - and I plan to write a review article to present at the International Astronautical Congress in September. I am so excited to share.