Brighton astronaut graduates from space academy

Brighton astronaut Rosemary Coogan has gained her “wings”, graduating from space training with the European Space Agency (ESA).

Ms Coogan, who went to secondary school and university in Brighton, has spent a year undergoing rigorous space training with five fellow astronauts.

She was presented with a certificate from the ESA’s European Astronaut Centre, in Cologne, Germany, and is now eligible for space flight.

The 32-year-old astrophysicist studied for her GCSEs and A levels at Brighton and Hove High School for Girls – now known as Brighton Girls – before going to university at Durham then Sussex.

After earning a doctorate in astronomy from Sussex, Ms Coogan was selected to join the ESA astronaut training programme in 2022, having beaten more than 22,500 other applicants.

She is only Britain’s third astronaut – but the second from Sussex, following Tim Peake, 52, from Chichester.

Helen Sharman, 60, became the first Briton in space in 1989 and Mr Peake went to the International Space Station (ISS) in 2015.

During basic astronaut training, Ms Coogan, who was born in Belfast, learnt about spacecraft systems, spacewalking, flight engineering, robotics and life support systems. She was also given survival and medical training.

She will now move on to the phases of pre-assignment and mission-specific training in preparation for future missions to the ISS and beyond.

At her graduation, Ms Coogan said that it had been a “long-standing” dream of hers to become an astronaut.

She said: “We are often asked, I think all of us have been asked, ‘When was the moment you decided that you wanted to become an astronaut? When was the moment you decided you wanted to do it?’

“And I can’t speak for everyone but, for myself, and for a lot of us, it really has been something that has always been in our heads.

“Perhaps we didn’t always know exactly where it was going to lead, exactly how it was going to come to this stage. I personally have always been fascinated by space.

“And now to find out that, as an astronaut, you can go there and you can do this fantastic science and bring that back, it’s everything come together as a dream.”

Her cohort included two other Britons. One of them was the former paralympian John McFall, who is part of a feasibility study to see if he can fly as a disabled astronaut.

The other, Meganne Christian, is a reserve astronaut who could join the programme if someone else drops out.

Stephen Wilkins, head of astronomy at Sussex, said: “Rose was a PhD student at the University of Sussex until 2019.

“While here, Rose studied the formation of stars and the growth of super-massive black holes in distant galaxies.

“It was at her graduation that I learnt that Rose had been making her way through the ESA’s selection process.”

Professor Wilkins added: “It’s fantastic to hear that she has now completed her training at the European Astronaut Centre and will hopefully soon be assigned a mission.

“We’re all incredibly proud of Rose’s achievements in the Astronomy Group at the University of Sussex and look forward to following the next steps of her journey.”