Who is Adrianos Golemis, the soon-to-be first Greek astronaut to fly to the International Space Station?

We might see the first citizen from Greece launch into space soon. Dr. Adrianos Golemis has been chosen as the third member of Vast’s first private mission to the International Space Station (ISS), which is scheduled to launch in 2027. Golemis will join European Space Agency (ESA) astronaut Thomas Pesquet of France and ESA Project Astronaut Aleš Svoboda of the Czech Republic in the mission that is expected to last 14 days. Pesquet will serve as the mission commander while Svoboda will be the pilot. The mission, which will also be the sixth private astronaut mission to the ISS, will be launched by SpaceX on the Falcon 9 rocket in coordination with NASA and other space agencies such as the ESA and the Hellenic Space Center.

Golemis will undergo Multilateral Crew Operations Panel (MCOP) review and approval before his role as a mission specialist is confirmed. The announcement was made last week at the International Space Summit in Paris in the presence of Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis and French President Emmanuel Macron, along with other government officials, ESA members, and Vast's CEO Max Haot. 

Who is Adrianos Golemis? 

According to a statement by Vast, Golemis studied medicine at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki and completed the interdisciplinary Master of Space Sciences at the International Space University in Strasbourg. He has worked on experiments on human physiology and psychology under isolated conditions in Antarctica during his year-long tenure starting in 2014 and has contributed to the medical support of ESA astronauts as a flight surgeon since 2018.

Golemis has also worked for the French Institute of Space Medicine and Physiology, MEDES, to study challenges astronauts face in space and also holds a private pilot license. He applied to ESA’s astronaut selection in 2022 and has been taking part in some blocks of ESA’s Astronaut Reserve Training since 2026. Over the coming months, Golemis will participate in various training modules both in Europe and the U.S., where he will be familiarized with the different phases of the mission by Vast, SpaceX, and NASA. SpaceX will provide him with lessons about the Falcon 9 rocket and the Dragon spacecraft and train him for emergencies and spacesuit functionality. 

NASA chose Vast earlier this year for a commercial mission as part of its plan to transition orbital operations to private players, given that the ISS is going to retire in 2030. As part of their agreement, the two parties will be trading services during the mission. Vast will purchase food, water, and other essentials for astronauts and cargo delivery and storage space aboard the station along with other resources, whereas NASA will be paying for the safe return of scientific samples under cold storage. 

Starting in 2022, the ISS has hosted four private missions, all of which were awarded to Axiom Space. The fifth mission (Ax-5) is targeted for launch no earlier than January 2027, and it is also expected to last two weeks.

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