4 hours ago

Rebecca Morelle

BBC News science team

Reporting from Houston, Texas

Alison Francis

Kevin Church/BBC

Rosemary Coogan is surrounded by a team of people pushing, pulling, squishing and squeezing her into a spacesuit.

It takes about 45 minutes to get all her gear on before a helmet is carefully lowered over her head.

The British astronaut is about to undergo her toughest challenge yet - assessing whether she is ready for a spacewalk. The test will take place in one of the largest pools in the world: Nasa's Neutral Buoyancy Laboratory at the Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas.

The pool - which is 12m deep (40ft) - contains a life-sized replica of the International Space Station (ISS), and a "spacewalk" here is as close as it gets to mimicking weightlessness on Earth.

Kevin Church/BBC

Dr Rosemary Coogan graduated as a European Space Agency astronaut in 2024

More:

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/czxyv3z710do