Image: Space suit vacuum test

Scheduled for launch in November, ESA astronaut Thomas Pesquet is travelling the world preparing for his six-month adventure on the International Space Station. At NASA's Johnson Space Center, in Houston, USA, Thomas is putting his spacesuit to the ultimate test on Earth: all the air is pumped out from the Space Station Airlock Test Article to create a vacuum like he would encounter in outer space.

Though Thomas has no spacewalk planned for his Proxima mission, all astronauts who live on the International Space Station are trained for spacewalks in case they need to head outside.

Thomas will be launched into space together with NASA's Peggy Whitson and cosmonaut Oleg Novitskiy. The trio will soon be training in Russia and will support their colleagues on the next launch to the Space Station in June.