The European Space Agency (ESA) announced to send French astronaut Sophie Adenot and Belgian astronaut Raphaël Liégeois to the International Space Station (ISS) in 2026.
ESA revealed at its space summit in Brussels on Wednesday that Adenot and Liégeois will be the first graduates of their astronaut cohort to take part in missions to the ISS.
ESA Director General Josef Aschbacher said sending the astronauts to the ISS is a significant milestone for the space agency and a decisive step towards preserving European knowledge and ensuring Europe's participation in current and future space missions.
It hasn't been revealed which missions Adenot and Liégeois will join.
According to the ESA, Pablo Álvarez Fernández from Spain, Rosemary Coogan from the United Kingdom, and Marco Sieber from Switzerland are also scheduled to travel to the ISS by the end of the decade.
After a ten year hiatus, the ESA resumed its training programme. The five astronauts were selected for the agency's program two years ago.
In April, they completed their basic training at the European Astronaut Centre in Cologne.