He's on his way to a dream job.
But before that, Clément Huber has an appointment in Hamburg, this Monday, December 6, for the second phase of selection of the European Space Agency (Esa).
This 29-year-old engineer responded to a call for applications launched by Esa last spring, the first since 2008. The space agency is seeking to recruit at least four members to expand its team of seven astronauts, including Frenchman Thomas Pesquet .
According to a press release from the agency, more than 22,000 applications, including 7,137 French, were studied.
As aspiring astronauts across Europe await the next step in our #AstronautSelection, early figures indicate that over 22,000 people have applied for ESA astronaut positions (8,413 in 2008).
More info 👉https: //t.co/j8cAgPvAZm pic.twitter.com/Lfn4X1Yjji
- ESA France (@ESA_fr) June 23, 2021
An ideal candidate?
Moreover, Clément Huber has everything of a carbon copy of Thomas Pesquet.
Like the favorite astronaut of the French, he graduated from an engineering school, the National School of Advanced Techniques (ENSTA).
After having gone through the prestigious military school of Saint-Cyr, the young Grenoblois became a reservist in the mountain hunter troops, when his elder was a member of the citizen reserve of the Air Force.
Like Thomas Pesquet, Clément Huber takes care of his image on social networks. Under the name of “spatioclem”, oddly close to Pesquet's “thom_astro”, it maintains the image of a jack-of-all-trades. Accompanied by a photographer in all his adventures, Clément Huber is sometimes a climber, stretcher bearer, gymnast or parachutist. And always with a smile and the right word, in perfect English.
Versatility which is the strength of Clément Huber's dossier.
“An astronaut has to be interdisciplinary.
If he is selected, he will be called upon to repair satellites as well as to organize conferences and speak to the media ”, underlines Stéphanie Lizy-Destrez, teacher-researcher at the Higher Institute of Aeronautics and Space ( Isae-Supaero), one of the schools attended by Clément Hubert.
She qualifies: “Esa does not necessarily expect candidates to be already comfortable with social networks.
The agency plans to train the winners.
"
Long selection
The selection is drastic to find the best profiles.
It takes place in six stages, until October 2022. Initially, the 22,589 CVs of the candidates were examined and then classified in order of scientific and physical skills.
Only 1,500 files are retained for the next stage, that of psychological and cognitive tests.
Clément Huber is at this stage, along with a good number of French candidates who were also selected.
To read also "I want to be an astronaut": these French candidates to succeed Thomas Pesquet
On the program of his meeting for the day, at the Hamburg aeronautical psychology department of ESA, "he will have to demonstrate logic, short memory, and quick thinking, in a series of questionnaires and psychomotor exercises. », Explains researcher Stéphanie Lizy-Destrez, specifying that the test methods are confidential.
Clément Hubert has been preparing these exercises for almost a year.
“I use various applications of psychotechnical testing exercises.
For example, I train on a
Test Pilot
who is used by Air France cadets ”
Clément Huber, at France Info
Five hundred candidates should be screened out.
The rest will travel to the Cologne Astronaut Center, for interviews and other psychological tests.
A medical evaluation will follow to verify that the candidate has a health compatible with the profession of astronaut.
Finally, there will be two phases of job interviews: first in front of a panel of interlocutors, then in front of the director general of Esa, Johann-Dietrich Wörner, who will make his decision at that time.
The winner will not be known until October 2022. Until then, the road to the stars is still (very) long for Clément Huber.