Toulouse together

ESA astronaut Thomas Pesquet is spending six months on the International Space Station as part of his second mission "Alpha". In his free time, like many astronauts, he enjoys looking out of the Cupola windows at Earth. This collage of pictures shows Toulouse, France, made from around 52 pictures mapped together, digitally rotated and assembled into this large collage. The images were taken on 11 August 2021 from 15:50 GMT.

Thomas commented on the collage through social media:

"Toulouse, where the heart of aerospace beats in France (and, one could argue, in Europe)! From space-themed museums to leading universities (I see you ISAE-SUPAERO), state institutions like CNES the French space agency and its biggest technical centre, hundreds of companies in the sector, and of course Airbus employing tens of thousands of people to design and build satellites and planes. That’s where I learned about aerospace as a student, got a job as an engineer, learned to fly small planes, and later came back and flew the biggest and most modern in the world with Airbus’s test pilots. I have so many friends in that city, and I think of them when we fly over. One could say that’s where it all began for me! However, for the people who are not so aerospacially inclined (I have been told they exist), there is also much more: the pink streets and university town make it a charming place for all – and yes, best city in Europe for rugby too !"

Thomas asked to have the series of highly zoomed-in pictures aligned into this collage to show the area in detail. The International Space Station flies at roughly 400 km altitude so Thomas uses the longest lenses available onboard.