Thomas Pesquet wraps up rehearsals and training

European Space Agency astronaut Thomas Pesquet wraps up rehearsals and training in his dive helmet off the coast of Key Largo, Florida, on 17 July 2014.

NASA’s underwater training missions are held off the coast of Florida and send astronauts 20 m below the sea to live in a makeshift space base where they conduct regular ‘waterwalks’ in scuba gear.

Pesquet will be an aquanaut-turned-astronaut on a future International Space Station crew, and this underwater mission will help better prepare him for that role.

Thomas Pesquet has been assigned to be launched on a Soyuz spacecraft from Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan in 2016 for a long-duration mission to the International Space Station.