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Hervé Stevenin was born 25 September 1962 in France. He leads ESA Neutral Buoyancy Facility Operations and the EVA Training Unit at the European Astronaut Centre (EAC) in Cologne, Germany. He became an aquanaut in September 2014   , as he served as a crew member  (NEEMO-19 Flight Engineer 3) of the NASA Extreme Environment Mission Operations 19 (NEEMO 19) simulating  underwater a space exploration mission with 5 minute communication delay between the crew module (Aquarius Reef Base immerged offshore Islamorada in Florida) and the NASA Mission Control Center. His crewmates were NASA astronauts Randy Bresnik (NEEMO-19 Commander), ESA astronaut Andreas Mogensen (NEEMO-19 Flight Engineer 1), CSA astronaut Jeremy Hansen (NEEMO-19 Flight Engineer 2) and Habitat Technicians Mark Hulsbeck and Ryan LaPete. Hervé worked for seven days under nitrogen saturation inside the Aquarius (laboratory) and performed 5 Extra Vehicular Activities for a total duration of 11 hours outside Aquarius.

Hervé is ESA’s spacewalk instructor for European astronauts and leads the team that develops and implements spacewalk training at EAC. He has more than 20 years’ experience in astronaut training and providing operational support for astronauts and has received extensive astronaut training himself. He has provided Extra-vehicular activity (EVA) training at EAC to the six European astronauts selected by ESA in 2009.

He is ESA’s Zero-G Instructor for European astronauts in parabolic flights and serves as Eurocom, the European capsule communicator (CAPCOM) that communicates from Columbus Control Centre with astronauts in orbit.

Hervé received spacewalk training in NASA’s Extravehicular Mobility Unit (EMU) spacesuits at the Johnson Space Center and at the Neutral Buoyancy Laboratory in Houston in 2004.

This spacewalk training experience led to the development and implement of ESA’s unique EVA Pre-Familarisation, Proficiency Rebuilt & Recurrent Training course which is now part of ESA’s training for European astronauts.

In 2011, Hervé completed 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.



He is currently the only “non-astronaut” European citizen with spacewalk training experience inside both NASA’s EMU spacesuit and the Russian Orlan.

Hervé 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.

Hervé also served as Capcom and support diver the 16th NASA Extreme Environment Mission Operations (NEEMO 16), with ESA astronaut Timothy Peake in the Aquanaut Crew simulating deep-space asteroid exploration off the coast of Key Largo, Florida in 2012.

In September 2013, Hervé 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. They tested a COMEX-designed prototype training-spacesuit based on the Orlan adapted to simulate Moon gravity.

Education and career
Hervé first graduated from the competitive French “classes préparatoires aux grandes écoles” at the  lycée Descartes in Tours, France.

He then graduated as an aerospace engineer from the Institut Supérieur de l’Aéronautique et de l’Espace (ISAE-ENSMA & 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.

Since 2007, he leads the NBF Operations and spacewalk training at EAC.

In parallel, from 2007 to 2012 Hervé served as Eurocom Team Lead before becoming responsible for the Aircraft Piloting Training for ESA astronauts.

Hervé participated as astronaut instructor in many parabolic flights on board Reduced gravity aircrafts (the Caravelle Zero-G, the Airbus A300 ZERO-G and NASA’s KC-135/930). He has logged more than 800 parabolas in microgravity experiencing almost five hours of weightlessness in total.

He served three times as member of the Search & Rescue Team in Kazakhstan for the spacecraft landing of European Astronauts.

Personal life
Hervé is a certified PADI "Open Water Scuba diving & Nitrox Instructor" and an Emergency First Response (CPR/First Aid/AED) Instructor logging more than 400 dives.

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

Hervé is married and has one daughter.