How long did Thomas Pesquet stay in space?

Thomas Pesquet's orbital career consists of two stays, both aboard the International Space Station and both of comparable length. The first, named Proxima, began on 17 November 2016 with a launch aboard a Soyuz from Baikonur and ended with a landing in Kazakhstan on 2 June 2017. The second, named Alpha, began on 23 April 2021 with the launch of a Crew Dragon capsule from Florida and ended with a splashdown off Florida on 9 November 2021.

ESA puts the total at around 396 days spent in space, making him the European with the most cumulative time in orbit at the time of his return, and by far the French record.

A standard crew rotation aboard the station runs around six months, set by the operational lifetime of docked spacecraft and the pace of crew handovers. This format is far from trivial for the body: it is enough to cause measurable bone loss, muscle weakening and changes in vision, which is why two hours a day are devoted to exercise on the treadmill, bike and resistance machine.

During his second mission, Thomas Pesquet also served as commander of the station, a first for a French astronaut, during the final part of his stay.

Both missions included spacewalks, devoted in particular to replacing batteries and installing new deployable solar arrays on the station's truss. Inside, the European and international science programme took up most of the days: human physiology, materials science, fluid physics, not to mention the Earth photography campaigns that contributed greatly to the public visibility of these missions.