Following in the footsteps of Helen Sharman and Tim Peake, UK-born astrophysicist and astronomer Rosemary Coogan is Britain’s third-ever career astronaut.
Selected from over 22,500 applicants to become one of only five new full-time European Space Agency (ESA) astronauts, her Class of 2022 – known as the Hoppers – graduated in April 2024 and now join the existing six members of the European Astronaut Corps selected in 2009.
Rosemary Coogan has an impressive CV. She has a doctorate in astrophysics, studying galaxy evolution, made use of the James Clerk Maxwell Telescope (JCMT) in Hawaii, developed robotics software in the UK and worked with the James Webb Space Telescope and Euclid Space Telescope at France’s CNES space agency in Paris.
Over the past year, she has undertaken intensive astronaut training at the European Astronaut Centre (EAC) in Cologne, where we caught up with her to find out more about her experiences and future spaceflight career.
What inspired you to want to travel into space?
Well, I suspect it’s different for everybody, but for me it was a childhood dream.
I’ve always inherently felt that it would be an amazing job.
As a young child, the concept of space as an extreme and fascinating environment had a hook for me… then eventually working and looking at absolutely stunning galaxies led to me being in this dream position of training to fly into space.
I was born in Belfast and brought up in Sussex, near Brighton.
At Durham University, I gained a degree and then a master’s, followed by a doctorate at Sussex University in the astronomy department there, which was coming back to my home turf.
Being both an astrophysicist and an astronomer is how I would have described myself previously.
Now, potentially being able to carry out experiments on the International Space Station (ISS) as an astronaut covering multiple sciences is a real privilege.
Our individual backgrounds are put aside now.
Did anyone motivate you to get involved in space studies?
I was really well supported by my parents, who had a mixed background in both humanities and sciences.
I was always encouraged to just follow what I was interested in.
I had some great science teachers and read popular books and space magazines.
My space career was constantly changing.
I got the chance to work in Paris, with observation time on the JCMT in Hawaii. That was a fantastic experience.
Also, I spent a year doing robotics software for a company near Reading.
Time at the Max Planck Institute in Munich was followed by my posting at the CNES space agency in Paris, working on the JWST and Euclid.
Were you confident you could get through the selection process?
Most of my immediate astrophysics contemporaries were submitting applications, so no one was surprised when I applied.
I really, really wanted to succeed. It wasn’t just a case of giving it a go.
Although the numbers are against you, I felt that nothing was going to get in my way.
I had the academic qualifications and career background, plus several years with the Sea Cadets and the Royal Navy Reserve had given me leadership and teamwork experience.
Because of the time gap between selections at ESA – the previous group was in 2009 – I believed this was my only opportunity.
How were you told you'd been selected?
I got the call from the ESA Director General, Josef Aschbacher.
We were told not to reveal the selection before the Paris ceremony, which was a few days later – so when I went out to dinner with friends that night, I had a gigantic smile on my face.
It was an absolutely fantastic feeling. I was incredibly elated.
Now the five of us are undertaking new duties at the EAC and awaiting an assignment to a mission to the ISS.
It will take approximately two [more] years to train up for a specific six-month mission, which would likely occur after 2026.
The cadence for the ISS assignments before the end of the decade is up to the Director General at ESA, Josef Aschbacher.
Beyond the ISS, ESA has an exciting future with the NASA-led Artemis project’s return to the Moon.
The uncrewed Artemis 1 mission was successful. The crewed Artemis 2 will fly around the Moon, and Artemis 3 will actually land.
ESA has three future mission seats booked and is involved in the Gateway lunar station construction.
I would love to travel on Artemis and visit the Moon.
What have been the highlights of your 12 months of training?
After I moved to the Cologne EAC in April 2023 as an ‘ascan’ (astronaut candidate) trainee, there have been an enormous number of things.
A big highlight was becoming part of a team with strong bonds.
I’ve really enjoyed going back to school, studying engineering, orbital mechanics, medical training, Earth studies and all the practical things that will enable us to fly and work in space.
The more ‘dynamic’ training has included hyper-gravity centrifuge runs at the Netherlands facility, zero-g parabola flights from Bordeaux and winter survival training in the Pyrenees – there it was very beautiful in the mountains, but very, very cold!
We learned emergency environment situational awareness, building fires and shelters in the snow as part of a team.
Those hyper-gravity centrifuge runs and zero-g training sound tough
Both situations were highlights and fantastic experiences.
In the centrifuge, we were taught how to go up to 6 g, which is the level of a non-optimal, ballistic re-entry.
The 30 microgravity flight parabolas gave us about 20–22 seconds of zero g each, so a total of 10 minutes of weightlessness.
We learnt how to operate tools, do emergency CPR and brace ourselves safely.
On the ISS, this kind of movement needs getting used to – we were told not to move our heads too much, initially.
I felt fine with this… it’s quite different from the spacewalk training in the neutral buoyancy tank.
We were also trained in robotic arm techniques for docking ISS cargo ships and, of course, learned Russian.
How soon will you be able to fly into space?
It’s important to remember that the crew for that potential project has not been decided yet.
When it is announced, it will be a very exciting moment.
I’m very lucky at present, though, as the ESA Director General has said that they intend to fly each of us on an ESA long-duration ISS mission before the end of the decade.
That’s what we are training for and that’s what is in my head at the moment.
This interview appeared in the July 2024 issue of BBC Sky at Night Magazine
