28/07/2020 (Agence Europe) – Frenchman Thomas Pesquet will be the first European to fly to the International Space Station (ISS) aboard the American SpaceX ‘Crew Dragon’ capsule in the spring of 2021, the European Space Agency (ESA) announced on Tuesday 28 July in a press release containing information provided by Pesquet on Twitter. The ESA astronaut has been officially assigned to what will be the second operational flight of the SpaceX Crew Dragon spacecraft. The mission, named “Alpha”, will be the Frenchman’s second flight to the ISS, after a first mission in 2016/2017. “The close collaboration among the space station partners NASA, JAXA, CSA, Roscosmos and ESA was strong in the past and remains very strong today and will do so in the future”, said ESA Director General Jan Wörner. (SP)