Danish ESA astronaut Andreas Mogensen has been selected for a long-term mission to the International Space Station. He is expected to fly to the ISS as a pilot of a Crew Dragon spacecraft in mid-2023 or early 2024.
The order was announced today by ESA Director General Josef Aschbacher during the Danish Ministry of Higher Education and Science’s national space conference in Denmark.
It’s the first long-term mission for Mogensen, who flew to the space station back in 2015 as part of a 10-day mission called Iriss. It is also the first time that an international partner astronaut has assumed the role of pilot for a NASA SpaceX mission.
“It gives me great pleasure to announce the deployment of ESA astronaut Andreas Mogensen on a long-duration spaceflight and to let you know that he is in training to become the first non-US astronaut to fly a Crew Dragon spacecraft will control,” says Aschbacher.
“Since his first flight in 2015, Andreas has been an invaluable member of the ESA astronaut team, bridging the gap between European astronauts and NASA’s Johnson Space Center (JSC) in Houston, Texas. We regularly hear him guiding astronauts on their spacewalks over the air from Mission Control, and I’m excited to hear his voice again over the air from space.
His assignment as a pilot is a sign of the deepening relationship between ESA and NASA as we expand our low-Earth orbit capabilities and venture even further into space.”
The first Dane in space
Mogensen is the first Danish citizen to fly into space and his Iris mission was quite eventful, literally. Unlike most astronauts, who have a week to adjust to their new environment, he worked an extra 90 minutes each day to support over 20 ESA experiments investigating new methods of operation and testing.
These included testing a water-purifying membrane modeled on nature, hands-free glasses that help with complex tasks, and a form-fitting suit that relieves back pain common to astronauts. He has remotely operated three different rovers on Earth in preparation for more distant missions in our solar system. He also filmed the lightning phenomena known as Blue Jets and Red Sprites as a precursor to the Atmosphere-Space Interactions Monitor ASIM installed in 2018.
Flight with the Dragon
Mogensen is assigned as a backup pilot for Crew-6 and is expected to serve in this role in a Crew Dragon starship as a member of Crew-7. That crew also includes NASA astronaut Jasmin Moghbeli, who was born in Bad Nauheim, Germany and will be flying into space for the first time.
“I’ve been looking forward to this since September 12, 2015, when I returned from my first mission,” says Mogensen. “The International Space Station is a unique laboratory where we can conduct groundbreaking research and technology development. I can’t wait to go back there.
Exploring space is about expanding our knowledge, broadening our horizons and creating the world we want to live in in the future. And there is nothing more exciting than that.”
Andreas Mogensen is the next ESA astronaut to fly into space, following ESA astronaut Samantha Cristoforetti, who is scheduled to launch as part of Crew-4 in April 2022.