Königswinter meteorologist remains in the race Cologne woman drops out of race to be first German female astronaut in space
BREMEN · The Eurofighter pilot Nicola Baumann is no longer competing to fly to the International Space Station (ISS). Her rival Insa Thiele-Eich from Königswinter, however, remains in the race.
Nicola Baumann might have become the first German woman to fly into space. But now the 32-year-old Eurofighter pilot has dropped out as a candidate for the private project "Astronautin", which wants to send a German female astronaut to the International Space Station (ISS) for the first time in 2020. "That came as a surprise," said the initiative's founder, Claudia Kessler, on Thursday at the German Press Agency in Bremen.
Remaining in the race, however, is Baumann's rival Insa Thiele-Eich. The 34-year-old meteorologist from Königswinter, together with Baumann, made the cut out of 400 applicants in a preselection. Six months of training are already behind her, including a so-called parabolic flight in Russia, to train in conditions of weightlessness. The next parabolic flights are scheduled for March in France.
Survival training, flight instruction and robotics are also part of Thiele-Eich's further training program. It is not yet known who will be named as a replacement for Baumann to accompany the astronaut-in-training from Königswinter in the coming weeks. According to project founder Kessler, one of the four other women who had reached the final round of pre-selection should now move up to take that place. It is likely that the project will announce the new astronaut candidate in January. She will train alongside Thiele-Eich over the next two years for a space mission.
For the training and the flight into space, the initiative must collect approximately 50 million euros. "We are progressing," said Kessler. "But we are still without a large share of the money.” (Orig. text: dpa, Translation: ck)
