After receiving her astronaut diploma on April 22, 2024, Colonel Sophie Adenot was designated on May 22 to fly into space and towards the international space station in 2026. And that’s a bit of Salon-de-Provence who will leave 400 km above the earth during 6 months. Indeed, Sophie Adenot went through theSchool air and space between 2005 and 2006. She then obtained her helicopter pilot’s license, carrying out search and rescue and then presidential transport missions for fifteen years.
The first female helicopter test pilot in France, she has already left her mark on French aeronautical history in her own way and will be the second French woman to go into space after Claudie Haigneré.
By flying to the International Space Station, Sophie Adenot joins the exclusive club of French astronauts. In fact, there are only ten of them who have carried out missions in space. Jean-Loup Chrétien was the first in 1982.
Many astronauts passed through Salon-de-Provence
And you should know that several of these illustrious astronauts also passed through Salon-de-Provence. We can cite Patrick Baudrywho was a student at the Air School in 1967 and left with an Air Engineer diploma and an Air Force officer in 1969. He became the second Frenchman to go to space, after Jean-Loup Chrétien, in 1985 aboard the American shuttle Discovery.
Then there was Jean-Pierre Haigneréentered the Salon-de-Provence Air School in 1969 and obtained an engineering diploma there in 1971. He totaled more than 209 days in space in two missions in 1992-1993 and 1998 on the Russian space station which was still called Mir (he boarded a Soyuz rocket).
Finally there was Leopold Eyharts. He was a student at the École de l’air in Salon-de-Provence in 1977 and received an aeronautical engineering diploma there in 1979. He also experienced two trips into space and two missions aboard the space station. internationally in 1998 and 2008.
Sophie Adenot has not forgotten her visit to Salone since she participated in December 2022 in video-conference exchanges with cadets of the School of Air and Space. She was able to show them how the School of Air and Space is an ideal place to prepare to conquer…the stars.
