French astronaut Sophie Adenot began her journey home on Wednesday, October 7, concluding an eight-month mission aboard the International Space Station that she admitted to leaving with “a touch of nostalgia.” The Air Force colonel spent a total of 235 days orbiting 400 kilometers above Earth, setting a new record for the longest continuous orbital stay by any European astronaut.
The achievement marks a remarkable feat for the first mission of the 44-year-old pilot, who fulfilled a childhood dream by becoming the second French woman in history to reach space.
Return Journey Underway
Adenot and her three crewmates—Americans Jessica Meir and Jack Hathaway, and Russian Andrei Fedyaev—welcomed the four astronauts of the Crew-13 team aboard the ISS on Friday, who arrived to relieve them. The departing crew spent their final days handing over responsibilities.
Their return voyage, expected to last more than 27 hours, began at 2:05 PM Paris time with the undocking of their Dragon capsule from the ISS.
After more than a day of travel, the astronauts will traverse the atmosphere at extremely high velocity before the spacecraft is slowed in the final minutes of flight by powerful parachutes for a splashdown in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of California. NASA has scheduled the splashdown for Thursday at 5:34 PM Paris time.
The capsule will then be hoisted aboard a specialized vessel, and the astronauts will be extracted and placed on stretchers or adapted seats to prevent the risk of fainting and falls.
Recovery Program
Adenot and her colleagues will subsequently be transported to land by helicopter, then fly to Houston, Texas, home to the NASA center responsible for astronauts.
From there, Adenot will fly to Cologne, Germany, to begin a recovery program of approximately three weeks at the European Space Agency’s astronaut training center.
The native of Cosne-Cours-sur-Loire in the Nièvre region, who celebrated her 44th birthday aboard the ISS in July, has described feeling her body age at an accelerated pace in space: white hair, loss of flexibility, declining vision.
In space, the body adapts to the absence of gravity, resulting in bone loss, muscle wasting, cardiovascular deconditioning, and visual disturbances. It will take her many months of targeted physical training to regain her pre-flight fitness.
First French Woman to Walk in Space
Aboard the ISS, beyond her appearances on screen upside down or with hair floating, and her communications displaying unwavering enthusiasm, the helicopter pilot has left her mark on space history.
Adenot became the first French woman to venture into the void of space during three extravehicular activities (EVAs) on August 18 and 25, and September 1.
These three spacewalks, totaling 19 hours and 42 minutes, will remain the “highlight” of her stay. “I hoped to perform a few spacewalks, but I didn’t expect three in a row within 15 days. It was an extraordinary experience,” she confided, comparing exiting the station to the sensation of “opening a car door and finding yourself with your feet at the edge of a cliff.”
Over the course of eight months, the French astronaut also conducted more than 200 scientific experiments designed to prepare for future space missions and advance science on Earth.
