The Belgian Raphaël Liégeois and the French Sophie Adenot have been designated to fly into space in 2026. The announcement was made this Wednesday, May 22. The Namur native will be the third Belgian to join the International Space Agency.
Alexandra Lambrechts
Published on 23-05-2024 at 12:08
We will soon have a Belgian astronaut in the space ! Raphaël Liégeois must have had stars in his eyes when he heard the news. His selection was announced this Wednesday, May 22, at the end of the day, by the director general of theEuropean Space Agency (ESA), in parallel with a Space Council underway in Brussels.
Raphaël Liégeois will fly to International Space Station (ISS) in 2026, probably in September. He will carry out a six-month mission. This space station has been in Earth’s orbit since 1998. Astronauts live there all year round. Scientific research is carried out there daily. The project was imagined by NASA, the American space agency. It is also at NASA that the Belgian will be trained while waiting for his departure.
Raphaël Liégeois, third Belgian to join the stars
His selection comes early, he graduated as an astronaut barely a month ago.
At 36, the Namur resident trained as a biomedical engineer (linked to biology and medicine) and in neuroscience (brain sciences). He will be the third Belgian to go into space. He succeeds Dirk Frimout in 1992 and Frank De Winne in 2002 and 2009.
Dirk Frimout was contacted by our colleagues from the Belga press agency. He declared that his designation “is good news for Belgium, to stimulate the space sector”.
The Namur native Raphaël Liégeois was selected alongside the Frenchwoman Sophie Adenot. She will be the first to join the International Space Station in the first months of 2026. Together, they are the first astronauts selected from the class of 2022.
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