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Do You Have What It Takes To Be An Astronaut? Find Out With The European Space Agency’s Online Game

A new online test has been designed to see who has what it takes to blast off to space, just like British European Space Agency (ESA) astronaut Tim Peake.

Developed by the Netherlands Aerospace Centre along with ESA and the Swedish Defence Research Agency, the test recreates some of the challenges faced by astronauts, including spatial awareness and control combined with weightlessness.

The test includes a challenge to manoeuvre a 3D block through space using a variety of different movements in order to ‘dock’ with another block, echoing the experience of docking a spacecraft.

The test mimics the experience of docking a spacecraft in microgravity (ESA/Netherlands Aerospace Centre/Swedish Defence Research Agency)

Using on-screen arrows to plan a series of movements, armchair astronauts then press the ‘execute’ button to begin the simulation and find out if they planned the sequence of movements correctly.

The idea is to complete the task as quickly as possible with the least amount of errors.

The test takes 30-60 minutes to complete.

The more people that play with the test, the better, as this will help ESA to validate the test so that it can be used to help select real-life astronauts in future.

The challenge is currently in beta testing mode, so it can only be played on desktop computers, though it is supported for all the key web browsers including Chrome, Firefox, Opera, Safari and Explorer.

American space agency NASA is currently accepting applications for its astronaut programme, though it only accepts applications from US citizens.

Image credit: Tim Peake/ESA