The European Astronaut Centre (EAC) is a centre of the European Space Agency

European Space Agency

The European Space Agency , established in 1975, is an intergovernmental organisation dedicated to the exploration of space, currently with 18 member states...

 and home of the European Astronaut Corps

European Astronaut Corps

The European Astronaut Corps is a unit of the European Space Agency that selects, trains, and provides astronauts as crew members on U.S. and Russian space missions. As of May 2010, 21 ESA astronauts have flown in space, including one female. There are currently 14 active members of the Corps. The...

. It is located in Cologne

Cologne

Cologne is Germany's fourth-largest city , and is the largest city both in the Germany Federal State of North Rhine-Westphalia and within the Rhine-Ruhr Metropolitan Area, one of the major European metropolitan areas with more than ten million inhabitants.Cologne is located on both sides of the...

, Germany

Germany

Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

, and is sub-divided in to four separate arms, these being Training, Medicine, Education and PR, and Astronaut Management. It provides training facilities to the European astronauts, particularly regarding ESA hardware for the ISS such as Columbus and the ATV. The overall European Astronaut Centre organisation is also in charge of the organisation of the training of European astronauts in the centers of other partners, such as the United States (Johnson Space Center

Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center

The Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center is the National Aeronautics and Space Administration's center for human spaceflight training, research and flight control. The center consists of a complex of 100 buildings constructed on 1,620 acres in Houston, Texas, USA...

), Russia (Star City

Star City, Russia

Star City is a common name of an area in Moscow Oblast, Russia, which has since the 1960s been home to the Yuri Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center...

), Canada (Saint-Hubert

Saint-Hubert, Quebec

Saint-Hubert is a borough in the city of Longueuil, located in the Montérégie region of Quebec, Canada. It had been a separate city prior to January 1, 2002, when it along with several other neighbouring south shore municipalities were merged into Longueuil. According to the Quebec Statistics...

) or Japan (Tsukuba

Tsukuba, Ibaraki

is a city located in Ibaraki Prefecture, Japan. It is known as the location of the , a planned city developed in the 1960s.As of 2008, the city has an estimated population of 207,394 and a population density of 730 persons per km². Its total area is 284.07 km².Mount Tsukuba, particularly well-known...

).

The Medical Operations arm (the Crew Medical Support Office

Crew Medical Support Office

The primary function of medical operations, centred at the Crew Medical Support Office in the European Astronaut Centre, Cologne, Germany, is to maximize the operational effectiveness and minimize risks to the health of the European astronauts involved in human space flight activities...

) concentrates on providing health related support to the European astronauts and their families. Astronaut management supports and directs the careers and mission placements of the astronauts, and Education and PR are involved in activities related to education and outreach and the appropriate representation of the European astronauts and their space activities to the public.

External links

• http://www.esa.int/esaHS/astronauts.html
• http://www.spaceflight.esa.int/file.cfm?filename=asteac