Sophie Adenot

Sophie Adenot (born 5 July 1982) is a French engineer, helicopter pilot, and astronaut. A French Air and Space Force helicopter pilot with the rank of lieutenant colonel, Adenot became France's first female helicopter test pilot in 2018. In 2022, she was chosen as a member of the European Astronaut Corps.

Early life and education
Sophie Adenot was born on 5 July 1982, in Cosne-Cours-sur-Loire, in Burgundy, France, to pharmacist Isabelle Adenot (Alloy) and Hubert Adenot, a notary in Corbigny. Her mother Isabelle was national president of the Ordre national des pharmaciens, a professional order for pharmacists, from 2009 to 2017.

Adenot attended a maison d'éducation de la Légion d'honneur, secondary schools open to daughters of members of the National Order of the Legion of Honour, in Saint-Denis to obtain a baccalaureate, and then attended higher school preparatory classes (classe préparatoire aux grandes écoles) to prepare for enrolment in one of the grande écoles.

From 2001 to 2003, Adenot studied engineering at institut Supérieur de l'Aéronautique et de l'Espace (ISAE-SUPAERO), in Toulouse, where she specialized in the flight dynamics of aircraft and spacecraft and earned a degree in 2004. She earned a Master of Science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge in 2004. She worked at MIT's Man-Vehicle Laboratory and wrote her thesis on how the vestibular system adapts to artificial gravity to develop centrifuge training for astronauts. For one year after graduating from MIT, in 2004, she was employed as an engineer at Airbus Helicopters, in Marignane, to design helicopter cockpits, especially those of H225 helicopters.

Air force service
Adenot joined the French Air Force in 2005. After receiving helicopter pilot training, she was assigned to the Escadron d'Hélicoptères 1/67 Pyrénées, stationed at Cazaux Air Base, where from 2008 to 2012 she piloted Caracal helicopters for search and rescue missions within hostile territory. In 2012, she was assigned to the High Authority Transport Squadron, located in Villacoublay, responsible for transporting the head of state, ministers, and delegations from foreign nations.

In 2018, she entered the Empire Test Pilots' School (ETPS) in the United Kingdom as a trainee test pilot, graduating as the first female helicopter test pilot in France and receiving the McKenna Trophy for the best test pilot of the 2018 intake. She also received a PgCert from Cranfield University in Flight Test and Flight Dynamics. After graduating from ETPS, she worked as a helicopter test pilot at Cazaux Air Base under the French Defence Procurement Agency from 2019 to 2022. , she has accumulated 3,000 flying hours across 22 types of helicopters.

Adenot earned the rank of lieutenant in the Air Force in August 2006, and rose to the rank of captain three years later, commandant in December 2014, and lieutenant colonel in June 2020.

Astronaut career
Adenot was selected to join the European Astronaut Corps as part of the 2022 European Space Agency Astronaut Group. Adenot is the second French woman to join the European Astronaut Corps, after Claudie Haigneré. Adenot and the sixteen other members of the group were selected from 22,500 candidates. Adenot was selected to be the first of her class ("The Hoppers") to fly to the ISS, estimated to launch in Spring 2026.

Awards and honors
In 2020, Adenot was recognized by the Young Leaders program of the French-American Foundation. The following year, in 2021, she was awarded the Médaille de l'Assemblée nationale for "actions as an inspiring ambassador for gender equality in sciences". She was appointed a chevalier in the French National Order of Merit in 2022.