When Sophie Adenot was a child, she had a poster of a rocket launched from Cape Canaveral in her bedroom.
On Friday, she took off from that launch pad, fulfilling a childhood dream and becoming the second French woman to fly into space.
Adenot is one of four astronauts currently en route to the International Space Station to replace a crew member who was evacuated last month due to unexplained medical problems.
For the next eight months, the 43-year-old helicopter test pilot will conduct scientific experiments at a station the size of a football field 400 kilometers (250 miles) above Earth.
Adenot has been dreaming of this moment since 1996, when she watched on TV as France’s first female astronaut, Claudie Hénières, blasted off to the Mir space station.
“I was 14 years old and it was a revelation,” Adenot said recently at a press conference.
“At that moment, I said to myself: One day, that’s going to be me.”
Heniere told AFP that Adenot was both his “heir” and “pioneer”.
“Sophie is a born astronaut,” added Henières.
After a two-day delay, Adenot, NASA astronauts Jessica Meir and Jack Hathaway, and Russian cosmonaut Andrei Fezyaev lifted off from Cape Canaveral on Friday on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket.
They are scheduled to arrive at the ISS on Saturday, where they will rescue a basic crew of three astronauts.
afghanistan rescue operation
As a teenager growing up in central France, Adeno would cut out pictures of space from magazines and paste them on his desk.
Adenot said on a recent podcast that while studying math was a source of motivation, “it seemed far removed from the space adventures I had dreamed of.”
She went on to study at prestigious universities such as MIT and work as a helicopter cockpit designer for European aerospace giant Airbus.
Adenot credits her grandfather, who was a mechanic in the French Air Force, with giving her the hobby of “taking things apart and fixing them.”
As a helicopter pilot, she completed two tours in Afghanistan specializing in search and rescue missions.
Adenot then became France’s first female helicopter test pilot in 2018.
“I love adventure, the unknown, facing impossible situations and seeing how people overcome them, whether as a team or alone,” she said.
But even as he logged 3,000 flight hours and 120 combat missions, Adenot never stopped dreaming of space.
She first applied to become an astronaut with the European Space Agency in 2008, when she was just 25 years old, but was rejected.
But in 2022, she was chosen from among 22,000 candidates and embarked on three years of intense training in preparation for Friday’s launch.
The mother of a teenage girl said it was a “tsunami” that completely changed her life.
Belgian Raphaël Ligegeois, another member of ESA’s 2022 astronaut class, told AFP he felt “raw emotions” as he watched Adenot launch.
Given her military background, Adenot “remains calm in all situations,” Lijova said.
But she also has an artistic side, he added, pointing to a “beautiful” poem Adenot posted on Instagram this week.
“I hope she can use this sensitivity to share her flying experience,” he said.
Michelin-starred cuisine
Adenot will be busy in the orbiting science laboratory, participating in more than 200 experiments.
Research will also include the effects of microgravity on the human body, such as measuring how time in orbit affects memory.
She also plans to test a system that uses artificial intelligence and augmented reality to allow astronauts to perform their own medical ultrasound examinations.
But that’s not all.
Anne-Sophie Pic, a 10-star Michelin-starred French chef, has prepared a menu for Adeno that includes lobster bisque and foie gras.
Adenot plans to enjoy the vacuum-packed haute cuisine on his 44th birthday on July 5th.
She also recorded the sounds of birds chirping, footsteps on snow, and rivers flowing to remind her of life on the blue planet she could see outside her window.
AFP