The European Space Agency (ESA) is Europe’s gateway to space. Its mission is to shape the development of Europe’s space capability and ensure that investment in space continues to deliver benefits to the citizens of Europe and the world.
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Exploring our Solar System and unlocking the secrets of the Universe
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ESA astronaut Thomas Pesquet spent six months on the International Space Station as part of his second mission Alpha. In his free time, like many astronauts, he enjoyed looking out of the Cupola windows at Earth. This collage of pictures shows Budapest, Hungary, made from many pictures mapped together, digitally rotated and assembled into this large collage.
Thomas shared on his social media in French and English:
"More and more countries are interested in human spaceflight and its benefits, such as Hungary: they presented a few days ago 4 astronaut candidates, who will take part in some training events with our newly selected ESA astronauts at EAC. Let’s hope for additional Hungarians going to space in the future, including women!) And as yesterday Hungarians were celebrating Nemzeti ünnep, their national day, I thought I'd get this collage of Budapest, the Pearl of the Danube, out from the #Alpha mission vault! I don't think it's too late to post red, white, and green cockades underneath to celebrate with them!"
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 used the longest lenses available onboard.