John McFall lost his leg in a traffic accident, and he has been using a prosthesis ever since. That didn’t stop him from getting astronaut training at the European Space Agency. Recently, he was allowed to fly to the ISS.
Astronaut with physical disabilities
This is the first time a European astronaut with a disability has been authorized to fly to the International Space Station for health reasons.
The European Space Agency announced on February 14 that John McFall, a reserve member of the agency’s astronaut corps, has been certified by a multinational medical board for long-term missions to the ISS.
This certification is noteworthy because McFall lost his right leg in a motorcycle accident at age 19, and he wears a prosthetic leg. He is the first person with such a disability to be medically cleared to prepare to fly to the station.
“John is today certified as an astronaut who can fly on a long-duration mission on the International Space Station, and I think this is an incredible step ahead in our ambition to broaden the access to society to space,” said Daniel Neuenschwander, ESA’s director of manned and robotic exploration, at a briefing on the certification.
Selection of McFall
ESA selected McFall as part of the astronaut recruitment announced for 2022. This selection process included ESA’s efforts to select what was then called a “parastronaut” to test whether people with certain physical disabilities could safely fly into space.
Once selected, McFall participated in a feasibility study called “Fly!” that addressed any concerns that might prevent him from going to the station, including both his health and the overall safety of ISS operations.
“I feel hugely proud,” McFall said. “The reception has been very warm and positive from the international partners there because of the detailed, methodical, exhaustive work we’ve done here with the feasibility study.”
According to Jerome Reineix, Fly! project manager at ESA, this feasibility study addressed more than 80 topics in areas such as training, ISS and spacecraft operations, medical issues and crew support. He expected there would be a variety of technical difficulties, but they were solvable.
“The main difficulty that we faced was not really technical but about the mindsets,” he said. “People have preconceptions of what a person with a physical disability can achieve, and you have to go again, explain again and demonstrate.”
Future manned missions to the ISS
Although McFall is medically fit to fly to the ISS, the ESA has not scheduled him for a flight yet. McFall is one of 12 reserve astronauts selected in that 2022 class, who are part-time members of the ESA Astronaut Corps and authorized for specific flight opportunities. One of those backup astronauts, Marcus Wandt, flew to the ISS last year on Axiom Space’s private Ax-3 spacecraft as part of an agreement between the Swedish Space Agency and Axiom. The second, Slawosz Uznanski-Wisniewski of Poland, is scheduled to fly to the ISS in the spring as part of the private Ax-4 space mission.
Neuenschwander suggested that long-term missions to the ISS would be carried out by full-time ESA astronauts, five of whom were selected in 2022. “Our objective is to fly all of them on a long-duration mission before the end of the International Space Station,” he said. The ISS is currently scheduled to be decommissioned around 2030.
UK Private Mission
McFall had previously been connected to a potential private astronaut mission being explored by the UK Space Agency as part of a memorandum of understanding with Axiom signed in October 2023. The study is considering a “all-U.K.” space mission that could be commanded by former ESA astronaut Tim Peake, who joins Axiom as a strategic advisor in July 2024.
McFall announced at the briefing that negotiations between Axiom and the UK Space Agency were continuing. “It’s a very interesting prospect,” he said, adding that the agency is “very proactive in trying to be as prepared as possible, if this develops into anything.”
Neuenschwander said such a private astronaut mission would be a decision by the UK Space Agency. “Whatever the mission architecture and funding scheme, we have authorization to fly John today, and that is the most important moment.”
According to spacenews.com
