Relatively speaking, it is not so hard to become an astronaut in the United States. During the last dozen years, NASA has selected a total of three classes, and conferred the coveted status of astronaut-candidate on 28 Americans. Meanwhile, since the turn of this century, the European Space Agency has chosen just a single class of astronauts—six men and women announced in 2009.

One of them was a Frenchman, Thomas Pesquet, from the small, coastal town of Dieppe in Normandy. And now, seven years later, he’s on the cusp of flying into space. On Thursday at 3:20pm ET, he, along with NASA astronaut Peggy Whitson and Oleg Novitskiy of the Russian space agency Roscosmos, are scheduled to launch to the International Space Station for a six-month stay. The rookie will be among veterans, including Whitson, who will become the first woman to command the station twice.