For the first time ever, ESA has been conducting astronaut training activities in China.
Matthias Maurer and Samantha Cristoforetti recently joined 7 Chinese astronauts - or Taikonauts -
for a nine day sea survival training session off China’s coastal city of Yantai.
“We are basically practising what would happen if there was an off-nominal landing,
we wouldn’t land on the ground but we would actually land in the water,
and we would have to survive independently for some time and using the rescue boats,
the rescue equipment and exiting of course the re-entry capsule autonomously.”
Wearing pressure suits, the astronauts entered a mock-up Shenzhou capsule
that was then released into the sea.
Samantha and Matthias were each teamed with two Taikonauts –
who between them have considerable speceflight experience.
After donning insulation and buoyancy suits,
they practised rescue procedures with both a ship and a helicopter.
Space missions can be unpredictable – and training exercises such as these
ensure that astronauts are prepared for every eventuality.
“The training experience so far is great, the Chinese are really well-prepared
– it’s high-level equipment, we get helicopter airlifting,
we have a huge sea-survival rescue ship which is usually employed on the high seas,
so very good equipment and a very good experience so far.”
Accompanying Samantha and Matthias in China were an ESA flight surgeon and a training specialist
– who gained insights into the different cultural nuances and approaches.
“During this training I’ve had the opportunity to work very closely with our Chinese medical colleagues,
and I’m very, very impressed about how they have combined their traditional Chinese medicine,
which has thousands of years of history,
with the most advanced medical knowledge that we can find now in the world.”
“Training here is very, very well organised.
So we have different ways of approaching training, which is inherited from the ISS programme,
but actually they are not that far away,
so it means that we find common words and common understanding in the way they also organise training,
so for us it’s a very good sign for further co-operation with the Chinese.”
This training exercise wasn’t the first collaboration between the two space agencies.
In July 2016, Chinese astronaut Ye Guangfu joined ESA’s caving course in Sardinia
to experience an extreme environment as part of a multicultural crew.
Both activities stem from the 2015 agreement to boost collaboration between ESA
and the China Manned Space Agency
- with the ultimate goal of flying European astronauts onboard the Chinese space station from 2022.
“This joint training we are doing here is a first step in a co-operation
that we all hope will lead one day in the early 2020s
to a European astronaut flying with the Taikonauts to the future Chinese space station,
so of course I would be thrilled if I had that opportunity.”
Organised by the Astronaut Centre of China in co-operation with the Ministry of Transport’s Beihai Rescue Bureau,
this training session has been an important step towards long-term collaboration.
Other training opportunities and joint activities are in the pipeline
– with the aim of helping ESA and the China Manned Space Agency to get to know one another better.