ESA astronaut Raphaël Liégeois from Belgium, a member of the ESA Astronaut Class of 2022, was selected in November 2022 from over 22,500 candidates who applied to ESA’s 2021 call for new astronauts.

He began his year-long basic astronaut training at ESA’s European Astronaut Centre (EAC) in Cologne, Germany, in April 2023. This training covered spacecraft systems, spacewalking, flight engineering, robotics, life support systems, survival, and medical training. Raphaël received his astronaut certification alongside fellow astronaut candidates Sophie Adenot, Rosemary Coogan, Pablo Álvarez Fernández, and Marco Sieber at EAC on 22 April 2024, officially marking his transition into a fully-fledged astronaut. 

In June 2024, Raphaël was announced for his first spaceflight mission, currently scheduled for 2026 to the International Space Station. After completing his pre-assignment training, he is now in mission-specific preparation, focusing on the tasks and experiments he will perform during his stay on the Space Station.

Source: ESA