Hungary’s Pro­fes­sion­al Astro­naut Can­di­dates Presented

The four astro­naut can­di­dates are Ádám Schlégl, Gyu­la Cserényi, Tibor Kapu, and András Sza­ká­ly (L‑R)

The HUNOR – Hun­gar­i­an Astro­naut Pro­gram will start the two-year train­ing of Hungary’s new­ly estab­lished pro­fes­sion­al astro­naut corps, con­sist­ing of one doc­tor and three engi­neers, the Min­istry of For­eign Affairs and Trade told MTI on Tues­day. It has now also been revealed who exact­ly the four can­di­dates are.

In her open­ing speech, Orsolya Fer­encz, the min­is­te­r­i­al com­mis­sion­er for space research, stressed that Hun­gary is return­ing to space. Based on the strong cat­a­lyst effect of the space flight of Berta­lan Farkas in 1980 (who was a guest at the press con­fer­ence), the main objec­tive of the cur­rent astro­naut pro­gram to set Hun­gar­i­an sci­ence and high-tech indus­try on a long and upward tra­jec­to­ry is well found­ed, she said, sum­ming up the long-term ambi­tions of the project.

Gábor Mag­yari, the HUNOR Program’s tech­ni­cal man­ag­er for astro­naut selec­tion and train­ing, said that

the 240 valid appli­ca­tions received were nar­rowed down to the four astro­nauts pre­sent­ed for train­ing in accor­dance with the require­ments of the Euro­pean Space Agency, NASA, the Inter­na­tion­al Space Sta­tion, and the program’s pri­vate indus­try part­ner Axiom Spaces.

The selec­tion process, which last­ed almost a year, test­ed the appli­cants’ men­tal per­for­mance, phys­i­cal sta­mi­na, per­son­al­i­ty sta­bil­i­ty, sci­en­tif­ic work eth­ic, and abil­i­ty to work as a team as well as lead when needed.

The four short­list­ed can­di­dates are Gyu­la Cserényi, 33, a high-volt­age elec­tri­cal engi­neer; Tibor Kapu, 31, a space devel­op­ment engi­neer; Ádám Schlégl, a clin­i­cal ortho­pe­dic sur­geon, and András Sza­ká­ly, 40, an aero­nau­ti­cal design engineer.

András Sza­ká­ly expressed his con­fi­dence in the poten­tial of the HUNOR Pro­gram to ensure that the tech­no­log­i­cal and sci­en­tif­ic devel­op­ments that are tak­ing off will enable an increas­ing num­ber of Hun­gar­i­an engi­neers to find pro­fes­sion­al chal­lenges in Hun­gary that match their skills. Ádám Schlégl looks for­ward to the sci­en­tif­ic advances in telemed­i­cine, and he expects to be able to do more for human lives than he has been able to do in surg­eries every day.

Gyu­la Cserényi is fac­ing the dan­gers of the space sta­tion with the same con­fi­dence as he has in the deci­sion-mak­ing sit­u­a­tions that his job has brought him in the past. Tibor Kapu said that they are deter­mined to face the chal­lenges of the next two years.

The HUNOR Hun­gar­i­an Astro­naut Pro­gram aims to launch a Hun­gar­i­an research space­craft to the Inter­na­tion­al Space Sta­tion, where it will car­ry out sci­en­tif­ic exper­i­ments, main­ly of Hun­gar­i­an devel­op­ment, for almost a month.

Of the four can­di­dates, one will be cho­sen final­ly, who will go into space at the end of 2024, or at the begin­ning of 2025.

A train­ing course will now begin for the can­di­dates that is a basic part of train­ing for all astro­nauts. They will learn all the com­pe­ten­cies need­ed to mas­ter the ele­ments of the Hunor pro­gram, depend­ing on the sched­ule and the weath­er, and they should be able to fin­ish by Feb­ru­ary of next year. They will then trav­el to Texas, where they will pre­pare for the mis­sion at Axiom Space and NASA sites, learn­ing the emer­gency pro­to­cols of the space­craft car­ry­ing them, as well as the oper­a­tions of the ISS mod­ules where they will con­duct experiments.

For­rás: hun​gary​to​day​.hu