European Astronaut Centre European Astronaut Centre The European Astronaut Centre (EAC) (German: Europäisches Astronautenzentrum, French: Centre des astronautes européens), is an establishment of the European Space Agency and home of the European Astronaut Corps. It is near to Cologne, Germany, and is subdivided into six separate arms, these being Astronaut Training, Space Medicine, Astronaut Management, Human Exploration of the Moon as part of the Spaceship EAC initiative and Communications. It provides training facilities for European and international partner astronauts (including a neutral buoyancy pool), particularly regarding ESA hardware for the ISS such as Columbus and formerly the ATV. The overall European Astronaut Centre
Astronaut training the ISS. The Tsukuba Space Center also includes medical facilities for assessing suitability of candidates, an isolation chamber for simulating some of the mental and emotional stressors of long duration spaceflight, and a hypobaric chamber for training in hull breach or Life Support System failure scenarios resulting in a reduction or loss of air pressure. Although official detail of the selection process for the Shenzhou program is not available, what is known is that candidates are chosen by the Chinese National Space Administration from the Chinese air force and must be between 25 and 30 years of age, with a