Hervé Stevenin

Hervé Stevenin
Born	(1962-09-25) 25 September 1962 (age 62) Arcachon, France
Nationality	French
Education	Aerospace Engineering, ISAE-ENSMA, ISAE-SUPAERO, PADI Diving Instructor
Occupation(s)	Engineer, Astronaut Instructor, European EVA Expert, Parabolic Flight Astronaut Trainer
Employer(s)	ESA, European Astronaut Centre
Known for	Aquanaut
Title	Head of NBF Operations and EVA Training Unit

Hervé Stevenin (born 25 September 1962 in France) is a European aquanaut leading ESA Neutral Buoyancy Facility Operations and the EVA Training Unit at the European Astronaut Centre (EAC) in Cologne, Germany. He served as an aquanaut^{[1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8]} on the NASA Extreme Environment Mission Operations 19 (NEEMO 19) crew.

Stevenin has received extensive astronaut training and is the only "non-astronaut" European citizen with spacewalk training experience inside both NASA's Extravehicular Mobility Unit (EMU) and Russian Orlan space suit. Stevenin has more than 20 years' experience in astronaut training and providing operational support for astronauts.

Education and career

Stevenin graduated as an aerospace engineer from the Institut Supérieur de l'Aéronautique et de l'Espace (ISAE-ENSMA^[9] & ISAE-SUPAERO) specialising in orbital and space mechanics.

He worked for 12 years at the French government space agency CNES as SPOT (satellite) system operations engineer for four years and as manager of the Crew Training and Operations for six years for three French astronaut missions to the Mir space station. He was a French Capcom in the Russian TSUP Control Center in Moscow for these three missions.

When he joined ESA and the European Astronaut Centre in 1999 as the Head of the Payload Training Unit in the Astronaut Training Division, he developed and implemented the first ESA Payload Training Programme at EAC for the International Space Station astronauts and was later trained and certified as Columbus (ISS module) Operator.

Stevenin served three times as member of the Search and Rescue Team in Kazakhstan for the spacecraft landing of European astronauts.

In 2004 Stevenin received spacewalk training in NASA's Extravehicular Mobility Unit (EMU) spacesuits at the Johnson Space Center and at the Neutral Buoyancy Laboratory in Houston, and completed in 2011 six weeks of EVA training and certification in the Russian Orlan space suit at the Yuri Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center (Star City, Russia), in Moscow with ESA astronaut Andreas Mogensen.

This spacewalk training experience led to the development and implementation of Europe's unique EVA Pre-Familiarisation, Proficiency Rebuilt & Recurrent Training course, which is now part of ESA's training for European astronauts.^[10] Stevenin is ESA's spacewalk instructor for European astronauts and has leads since 2007 the team that develops and implements spacewalk training at EAC.^[11] He has provided EVA training at EAC to the six European astronauts selected by ESA in 2009.

Stevenin applied to become an astronaut in Europe's astronaut selection of 2009 and was one of the last 45 finalists out of 8413 astronaut applicants from 17 European countries.

Stevenin is also ESA's Zero-G Instructor for European astronauts in parabolic flights^[12] and has logged more than 800 parabolas in microgravity experiencing almost five hours of weightlessness in total on board Reduced gravity aircraft (the Caravelle Zero-G, the Airbus A300 ZERO-G and NASA's KC-135/930).

Stevenin served as EUROCOM, the European capsule communicator (CAPCOM) that communicates from Columbus Control Centre with astronauts in orbit. He led the Eurocom Team from 2007 to 2012 and served in 2012 as CAPCOM and support diver of the 16th NASA Extreme Environment Mission Operations (NEEMO 16).^[13]

In September 2013, Stevenin and ESA astronaut Jean-François Clervoy slipped into the roles of Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin for an underwater simulation test of Apollo 11 moonwalk tasks, organised by the Compagnie maritime d'expertises (COMEX) off the coast of Marseilles, France.^{[14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21][22][23][24][25]} They tested a COMEX-designed prototype training-spacesuit based on the Orlan adapted to simulate Moon gravity.^{[26][27][28][29][30]}

Stevenin became an aquanaut through his participation in the NASA NEEMO 19 mission simulating undersea a space exploration mission aboard Aquarius, the world only undersea research laboratory^[31] with crewmates^[32] NASA astronaut Randy Bresnik, ESA astronaut Andreas Mogensen and CSA astronaut Jeremy Hansen. Prior to the NEEMO 19 mission Stevenin was quoted as saying that "It is a privilege to be part of the crew with three astronauts. I am looking forward to take part in this outstanding project to test future concepts for space operations as well as evaluating spacewalk tools, techniques and man–machine interfaces for future space exploration beyond the International Space Station." ^[33]

Stevenin (second from left) during NEEMO 19

Personal life

Stevenin is a certified PADI "Open Water Scuba diving & Nitrox Instructor"^[34] and an Emergency First Response (CPR/First Aid/AED) Instructor and has logged more than 400 dives.

He has a private pilot licence (EASA Part-FCL) and was certified in France for aerobatics flights in positive G. He has skydiving experience and has logged 60 parachuting jumps.

He is married and has one daughter.

References

1. "NEEMO Aquanauts Test Hands-Free Wearable 'Mobile Procedure Viewer' Prototype - Space News - redOrbit". Retrieved 13 October 2014.
2. "L'astronaute Jeremy Hansen espère se rendre dans l'espace d'ici 2020". Le Huffington Post. 13 September 2014. Retrieved 13 October 2014.
3. "NASA Extreme Environment Mission Operations (NEEMO) prepare astronauts". Retrieved 13 October 2014.
4. "L'ENSMA de Poitiers en direct avec une station sous-marine de la NASA". France 3 Poitou-Charentes. Retrieved 13 October 2014.
5. "L'entraîneur d'astronautes et les futurs ingénieurs". Retrieved 13 October 2014.
6. "Canadian astronaut Jeremy Hansen tackles another frontier – the deep sea". Global News. 12 September 2014. Retrieved 13 October 2014.
7. "NASA NEEMO Mission Trains Astronauts in Extreme Underwater Environments". Headlines & Global News. 22 July 2014. Retrieved 13 October 2014.
8. "Multinational Astronauts Set to Submerge Undersea to Prep for Deep Space". Retrieved 13 October 2014.
9. "En direct du fond de l'océan". Retrieved 13 October 2014.
10. "DLR - Space Administration - Training astronauts for space – under water". Retrieved 13 October 2014.
11. "Portrait - Ingénieur de l'espace - Développement économique, TIC, implantation d'entreprises - Technopole du Futuroscope". Retrieved 13 October 2014.
12. esa. "ESA's new astronauts have a taste of zero gravity". European Space Agency. Retrieved 13 October 2014.
13. esa. "Listening to the past and talking to the future". European Space Agency. Retrieved 13 October 2014.
14. "Astronauts Take Underwater Moonwalk In 'Apollo 11 Under the Sea' (Photos)". Space.com. 17 October 2013. Retrieved 13 October 2014.
15. "European Astronauts Recreate Moon Landings Under The Sea (PICTURES)". The Huffington Post UK. 21 October 2013. Retrieved 13 October 2014.
16. "European Space Agency reenacts Apollo 11 -- on the seafloor". CBS News. 22 October 2013. Retrieved 13 October 2014.
17. MAS. "Mission spatiale... en mer à Marseille !". Archived from the original on 18 October 2014. Retrieved 13 October 2014.
18. "На подводном полигоне Comex на прошлой неделе астронавт ESA моделировал высадку на поверхность Луны". Retrieved 13 October 2014.
19. "Астронавт совершает "лунную" прогулку в море. Подводные миссии". Retrieved 13 October 2014.
20. "Астронавты ЕКА провели тренировки, имитирующие высадку на Луне". Retrieved 13 October 2014.
21. "Podvodní Apollo 11 v režii ESA - www.kosmonautix.cz". 13 September 2013. Retrieved 13 October 2014.
22. "宇宙飛行士の潜水訓練、無重力を疑似体験". Retrieved 13 October 2014.
23. Luis Vedor. "Uma missão subaquática à Lua". PCGuia. Retrieved 13 October 2014.
24. "Astronauts Take Underwater Moonwalk In 'Apollo 11 Under the Sea' (Photos)". Yahoo News Canada. 20 October 2013. Retrieved 13 October 2014.
25. "Franzosen spielen Apollo-Mondmission unterm Mittelmeer nach". 11 September 2013.
26. "Mondlandung im Mittelmeer? - FLUG REVUE". FLUG REVUE. 12 September 2013. Retrieved 13 October 2014.
27. esa. "Underwater astronaut on the Moon". European Space Agency. Retrieved 13 October 2014.
28. "Home". COMEX sas. Retrieved 25 March 2023.
29. esa. "Un astronaute sous-marin sur la Lune". European Space Agency. Retrieved 13 October 2014.
30. "Espace" (PDF).
31. "NEEMO 19 Crew Shares Undersea Experiences". NASA. Retrieved 13 October 2014.
32. "Meet the NEEMO 19 Crew". Aquarius. Archived from the original on 15 October 2014. Retrieved 13 October 2014.
33. "NASA To Send Two Astronauts To The Bottom Of The Sea - Space News - redOrbit". Retrieved 13 October 2014.
34. esa. "Tim scuba diving for space". European Space Agency. Retrieved 13 October 2014.

External links

• Profile page of Hervé Stevenin at ESA
• Meet the NASA NEEMO 18 & 19 Aquanaut crews
• Hervé Stevenin as " @ESAstro_trainer " on Twitter