22 April 2024 , 17:40
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Britain's third-ever astronaut has graduated from European Space Agency training.
After a year of basic training Rosemary Coogan, 33, has been certified as an astronaut along with four European candidates. She got her badge yesterday at the ESA’s European Astronaut Centre in Cologne, Germany, in a ceremony involving astronaut Alexander Gerst.
Dr Coogan has degrees in physics and astronomy from Durham University and a PhD in astronomy from the University of Sussex.
In 2022 she beat more than 22,500 other applicants to get on the ESA’s astronaut training programme. She follows Helen Sharman, the first Briton in space in 1989, and Tim Peake, who went to the International Space Station in 2015.
The graduates will now move on to pre-assignment and mission-specific training, paving the way for missions to the ISS and beyond.
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Dr Coogan receiving her graduation badge (AFP via Getty Images)Dr Coogan said at her graduation: “We are often asked, ‘When was the moment you decided that you wanted to become an astronaut? And I can’t speak for everyone, but for myself, and for a lot of us, it really has been something that has always been in our heads.”
“I personally have always been fascinated in space. And now to find out that, as an astronaut, you can go there and you can do this fantastic science and bring that back, it’s everything come together.”
The International Space Station transiting the Moon (PA)Born in Northern Ireland in 1991, Dr Coogan went to school in Brighton, East Sussex. As a child she was in the Sea Cadets and has served in the Royal Naval Reserve.
The UK Space Agency’s Libby Jackson said: “It’s really important for the UK that our astronauts are champions not just for human spaceflight, but for everything that goes on in the UK across space.”
Former Paralympian John McFall, 42, is part of a feasibility study to see whether he could fly as a disabled astronaut. Meganne Christian, 36, is a reserve astronaut for the ESA programme.