Interview with Thomas Pesquet before his take-off scheduled for Friday 23 April

The French astronaut is due to take off Thursday April 22 from Cape Canaveral (Florida), aboard SpaceX's Crew Dragon capsule for a six-month mission in orbit. Between 180 and 200 scientific experiments are planned. Among the subjects discussed, Thomas Pesquet is reassuring about the aging of the international space station “we are following the station very closely and it is in good condition. We had a microleak on one of the Russian modules which is getting quite old since it is over 20 years old. We plugged it in, so everything is fine. " On the other hand, the station is very full "we are installing new systems, new scientific experiments (...) there is really no longer a single surface that is not occupied by equipment.".

Le Monde, April 21