In the meantime, European astronauts will continue to require alternative rides to the ISS for their missions.
“I am thrilled to be the first European to fly on the new generation of U.S. crewed spacecraft,†said Pesquet, who has already spent 197 days at the ISS in 2016 and 2017.
Up until now, European astronauts have only been able to reach the ISS through the discontinued NASA Space Shuttle program or the Russian-built Soyuz.
ESA’s outgoing Director General Jan Wörner said that the deal illustrates the “international character of human spaceflight” even though it is using a commercial spacecraft built in the U.S.
The 2021 mission — dubbed Alpha — will mark the first time in a decade that a European astronaut has been launched into space from the U.S. Back in 2011, Italian Roberto Vittori travelled aboard NASA’s Space Shuttle Endeavour.