He went on to become a commercial pilot for the French airline, where he started flying the Airbus A320 in 2006. He has logged more than 2000 hours flying time on various commercial airliners, and has qualified as a type-rating flight instructor on the A320, and as a Crew Resource Management instructor. In 2018, Pesquet gained his Airbus A310 type rating and is qualified as a Novespace Zero-G aircraft pilot. ESA career Pesquet was selected as a European Space Agency (ESA) astronaut in May 2009. He joined ESA in September 2009 and successfully completed Astronaut Basic Training in November 2010. Pesquet is the youngest member of the European Astronaut Corps, and the last of the ESA astronaut class of 2009 to arrive in space. On 10 June 2014, NASA announced that Pesquet would serve as an aquanaut aboard the Aquarius underwater laboratory during the NEEMO 18 undersea exploration mission, which began on 21 July 2014 and lasted nine days. He has also taken part in ESA's CAVES underground course in 2011 and NASA's SEATEST II mission in 2013, furthering his experience in exploration. In 2014, Pesquet was chosen by ESA for a six-month mission to the International Space Station starting in November 2016. He was also the backup to ESA astronaut Andreas Mogensen who flew to the International Space Station on a 10-day flight in September 2015. Expedition 50/51 Pesquet launched from the Baikonur Cosmodrome onboard Soyuz MS-03 on November 17, 2016. He spent six months on the International Space Station as part of Expedition 50/51. Arriving at the ISS on November 19, 2016, he was the first French astronaut since Léopold Eyharts helped install the Columbus European laboratory module during Expedition 16. His arrival marked the beginning of the European Proxima mission. The Proxima mission included 50 science experiments for ESA and CNES. The mission was named after Proxima Centauri, continuing the French astronauts' tradition of naming the missions after stars and constellations. The X inside the logo symbolizes that Pesquet is the tenth French astronaut as well as the unknown. The Proxima mission name was chosen in a competition, with the winning name given by 13-year-old Samuel Planas from Toulouse, France. The mission logo was designed by Thomas Pesquet and Karen Oldenburg. Pesquet performed his first EVA with astronaut Shane Kimbrough on January 13, 2017. During the EVA, they prepared the infrastructure to replace the ISS batteries. The