The first Greek astronaut picked to travel into space, mission specialist Andreas Golemis, spoke with the Athens-Macedonian News Agency (ANA-MPA) on Friday about his journey that will take him from his birthplace in Larissa to becoming part of the mission going to the International Space Station in 2027.

“It is an honour and a joy to represent Greece in space,” Golemis told the ANA-MPA, talking about the career that led him to this point, his years of experience as a flight surgeon at the European Space Agency (ESA), which is now continuing with preparations for his participation in the PAM-6 mission to the ISS.

“Obviously for me, there is an element of a dream, I always wanted to have the opportunity to fly into space, but the feeling is much more intense and profound, because we will be doing this with experiments from Greek universities and companies from our country,” he stressed.

He added that the purpose of this mission is to bring Greece to the front line and to strengthen the research and innovation sector. “The aerospace sector in Greece is already strong and it is very pleasing that we will be adding another building block.”

He made special mention of the Ministry of Digital Governance and the Hellenic Space Centre, “which have helped a great deal.”

The flight is scheduled for 2027 and is part of the first private mission to the ISS. Transport will be carried out by SpaceX using a Dragon spacecraft, which will be launched on a Falcon 9 rocket. The mission commander will be Frenchman Thomas Pesquet, whilst Adrianos Golemis will participate as a mission specialist.

Golemis was Pesquet’s doctor on his previous mission. “It is a very nice coincidence that we will now be flying together. As he told me, now I will see things from the other side too,” Golemis noted.