France: Pesquet and Prost will go to space in 2027 for a world first.

Emmanuel Macron announced on Monday, June 1, during the Choose France summit from the Élysée, an agreement between France and the American company Vast for two commercial space missions in 2027 involving astronauts Thomas Pesquet and Arnaud Prost. The California-based company, founded in 2021 by cryptocurrency billionaire Jed McCaleb, simultaneously announced the establishment of its European headquarters in Paris. “Vast has chosen France. This confirms France’s space ambition,” Macron wrote on X.

Pesquet, 47, will make his third space flight aboard the PAM-6 mission, the sixth private mission organized by Vast in partnership with NASA to the International Space Station (ISS), with a launch scheduled for as early as the summer of 2027. Subject to the approval of the Multilateral Crew Operations Committee (MCOP) – the governing body of the ISS comprised of representatives from NASA, ESA, Roscosmos, JAXA, and the Canadian Space Agency – he would be its commander. This would be a first: no non-American astronaut has ever commanded an American capsule.

Arnaud Prost, backup astronaut for the European Space Agency (ESA), will make his first space flight on the test flight Haven-1, the first crewed mission to Haven-1, the world’s first private commercial space station. He will serve as a flight test engineer. “This astronaut mission to a private station is a world first,” emphasized the National Center for Space Studies (CNES). The Haven-1 station is currently undergoing final assembly in California. Its launch, initially scheduled for 2026, has been postponed to 2027. SpaceX will provide transportation with a Crew Dragon capsule.

Two Missions of Two Weeks Each

The two missions will each last about two weeks – compared to six months for Pesquet’s previous long-duration expeditions aboard the ISS in 2016-2017 and 2021. They will be dedicated to scientific, educational, and technology demonstration activities, according to Vast’s statement. The short format is characteristic of commercial private missions, which prioritize rapid crew rotations on targeted experimental programs rather than the long stays typical of institutional missions.

For Pesquet, the format is significantly different from his two previous missions conducted under ESA mandate as part of the standard ISS cooperation. The PAM-6 mission falls under the commercial aspect of the ISS program, for which NASA allocated a flight slot to Vast in February 2026.

With this agreement, France becomes the only European country to have three active astronauts simultaneously, according to CNES. Sophie Adenot, the first Frenchwoman to command an ISS mission, is currently on a mission aboard the station. Her return is expected before the launches of Pesquet and Prost. The agreement with Vast will be announced at a joint press conference with CNES-ESA-Vast scheduled in the coming days.

The announcement fits into France’s strategy to position itself in the private commercial space market at a time when the ISS is approaching its planned deorbit date starting from 2030, and several companies – Vast, Axiom Space, Sierra Space – are working to build alternatives in low Earth orbit. Haven-1, of which Haven-2 is the expanded version, is designed to take over.