Pablo Álvarez Fernández graduated as an astronaut this Monday, April 22, along with his colleagues Sophie Adenot, Rosemary Coogan, Raphaël Liégeois and Marco Sieber after successfully completing basic training at the European Astronaut Center in Cologne (Germany).
Also completing a year of basic astronaut training is Australian candidate Katherine Bennell-Pegg, who has trained alongside ESA candidates and will also graduate with the class of 2022.
"I remember when I wanted to be an astronaut. I was looking at the Moon when I was four or five years old in my small town in the mountains of Spain and someone told me that there were people who had walked on the Moon but I was disappointed to hear that only twelve people had done it and I thought it had to be something more common," Álvarez recalled.
That was the moment when the Spaniard realized that he really wanted to be an astronaut. However, as time went by he stopped thinking about it because he believed that "it couldn't happen."
"It wasn't until the ESA selection when it started to enter my head again and I tried very hard to achieve it. Today we are one step closer," Álvarez celebrated during his graduation.
In his speech, the Spanish astronaut has for the moment ruled out being a candidate for the Artemis missions, the program run by NASA to explore the Moon. "We are now focusing on preparing a mission for the International Space Station (ISS), which is already quite challenging," he said.
"Of course we will be astronauts for several years, we have a plan to stay for a long time, so we will see what the future brings us. But now we focus on the ISS," added Álvarez.
The Spanish astronaut was accompanied at the graduation ceremony of his ESA class by the Minister of Science, Innovation and Universities, Diana Morant. Before attending the graduation ceremony, the Spanish minister held a bilateral meeting with the director general of the European Space Agency.
"Today is a significant milestone as we celebrate the graduation of a new class of five ESA astronauts, who are now qualified to be assigned to future space flights. The addition of new talent and diverse perspectives and experiences enhances our ability to navigate by the complexities of space exploration and consolidates ESA's role as a pioneering force in shaping our future in space," said ESA Director General Josef Aschbacher.
Pablo Álvarez (1988), a native of León, is a space engineer. He began the one-year basic training course at the European Astronaut Center in Cologne in April 2023 after being selected from more than 22,500 candidates from ESA Member States in November 2022.
"Basic astronaut training has been an extraordinary journey of personal growth. I am deeply grateful for the invaluable lessons I have learned from the best in the business and am excited to play a role in shaping the future of space exploration," he said. Alvarez underlined.
As an ESA astronaut representing Spain, for Álvarez "it is an honor" to join a list of names like Pedro Duque. "This opportunity fills me with immense pride and I am excited to take our shared passion for space to unprecedented heights," he said.
The Spanish astronaut assumed service with his colleagues at the European Astronaut Center to be trained according to the standards specified by the partners of the International Space Station.
During the first year of their training, astronaut candidates have undergone a training program to learn about space exploration, including technical and scientific skills, space systems and operations, and training such as spacewalk diving and survival training.
The first few weeks of his training he participated in sessions to familiarize himself with ESA, along with scientific seminars and fitness assessments.
After completing their basic training, candidates will be certified ESA astronauts and will be ready to enter the next phase of Space Station training called pre-assignment training. Once assigned to a mission, mission-specific training begins that will be tailored to the mission tasks, including hands-on training on ESA modules and technologies, as well as training with international partners.
The astronaut candidates join the current group of ESA astronauts who are actively involved in space missions and research projects.
The first astronaut of Pablo Álvarez's generation will fly into space at the beginning of 2026. For the moment, the missions of the Spaniard and his companions are scheduled to be to the International Space Station and with an estimated duration of six months.
Álvarez considers that the "most important" thing about these missions "is the scientific return", so his dream mission would be one in which he contributes to "finding a cure for some disease or improving the conditions of those who suffer from it" and many of the experiments on the International Space Station "are going in that direction."
"A trip to space has multiple faces since there is a technological and scientific part, one for dissemination and another for exploration and adventure. But nothing can beat the experience of seeing the Earth from space!" explained the Spanish astronaut in a interview with Europa Press.
Regarding his relationship with his teammates and the fields in which he excels compared to them, Álvarez specified that "everyone is so good that it is extremely difficult to stand out in something." "But the most important thing is not to excel at something, the most important thing is not to have any obvious weakness or something that you are exceptionally bad at, and that is what they have looked for in all the tests of the process. You don't have to be a genius at Mathematics, Physics or multitasking, you have to be versatile and multifaceted," he stated.
