The five new European astronaut candidates have started their training at the European Astronaut Center in Cologne. The announcement of the five chosen (among 22,523 candidates from all over Europe) occurred last November amid great expectation, since since 2009 no new astronauts had been incorporated into the agency.
The five astronaut candidates will be focused on their training for at least the next four years. One year from now, upon completing basic training, they will be certified astronauts and will continue to train for another year until they are assigned a mission.