European Space Agency astronaut Thomas Pesquet will visit Monaco on Friday, September 11, 2026, for a public conference hosted by the Monaco Méditerranée Foundation as part of its ongoing speaker series. The talk takes place at 6.30pm at One Monte-Carlo, where Pesquet will address the theme of space exploration, both today and in the years ahead.
The visit comes as Pesquet prepares for his next mission to space, expected no earlier than 2027, under an agreement between France and American space company Vast. Known as PAM-6, the mission will be his third spaceflight, following previous trips to the International Space Station in 2017 and 2021. Pesquet is set to command the two-week commercial mission in partnership with NASA, with the crew carrying out scientific research, educational outreach and technology demonstrations aboard the ISS. Further details on the mission’s crew and programme are expected to be announced just days beforehand, at the International Space Summit taking place in Paris on September 9 and 10.
Pesquet is no stranger to the Principality. According to Monaco-Matin, he previously visited Monaco in 2023 for the MAGIC pop culture convention, delivering a masterclass on his Alpha mission to an audience that included actor and director Mathieu Kassovitz, who joined him briefly on stage. In an exclusive video interview given to the outlet during that visit, Pesquet reflected candidly on the isolating experience of long-duration spaceflight, describing a strange, almost unnatural sensation of being withdrawn from the world and looking down on it from above. He recalled taking photographs during the mission and later realising that everyone he knew, and the entire world itself, was somewhere contained within those images, with only him and his crewmates absent from the frame.
An astronaut who has spoken openly about his ambition to one day walk on the Moon, and perhaps even Mars, Pesquet’s return to Monaco in September offers local audiences a rare opportunity to hear directly from one of Europe’s most recognised figures in space exploration.