Patrick Michel, the astrophysicist that the world envies – L’Express

To some extent, Patrick Michel could have inspired the screenwriters of Don’t Look Up, an American blockbuster broadcast on Netflix. But, unlike astrophysicist Randall Mindy, played by Leonardo DiCaprio, who seeks in vain to warn of the imminence of the impact of a giant meteorite on Earth, the French scientist was able to be persuasive. A keen politician, tireless lobbyist, a bit of a spy too, he convinced the leaders of rich countries to release millions of euros and dollars to closely study the asteroids that cross around our planet. It wasn’t easy, and its story has all the makings of a good blockbuster, with its setbacks and twists and turns. But, if the world ended up launching exploration missions which will perhaps one day avoid the destruction of the planet, and others to study these large stones which tell the story of the Solar System, it is largely thanks to to this CNRS research director, attached to the Côte d’Azur Observatory – even if he refuses to take the laurels and always highlights teamwork.

Today, Patrick Michel is part of all the scientific adventures that regularly make billions of Earthlings dream. He is participating in the work of the NASA Osiris-Rex probe team, which traveled some 4 billion kilometers to take a 250 gram sample from the asteroid Bénou. He is also a member of the group responsible for the Hayabusa 2 probe of Jaxa, the Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency, which collected 5.4 grams from the asteroid Ryugu. He is even scientific director of the Hera mission, of the European Space Agency (ESA), which must observe the damage caused by an American impactor vessel on Dimorphos.

A life that looks like a spy novel

An international star in the hunt for asteroids, this scientist whom the world envies also willingly lends himself to the game of popularization. When he finds himself surrounded by a few journalists in a restaurant in the 6th arrondissement of Paris, he is all smiles. Short hair, bright eyes and dressed in an ESA polo shirt, the doctor in astrophysics, author of 200 studies published in international journals, is accompanied by Odile Jacob, the founder of the publishing house which published in last October his fascinating work Meeting the asteroids. Between two bites – he refuses the champagne which he clearly does not need to talk for hours – the 53-year-old researcher does not waste a second to share his passion and his experience.

Reaching the widest possible audience was his main motivation for writing. “There are few books on asteroids! The general public lacks knowledge, even though it is a subject that fascinates, especially young people, because these space exploration missions are also stories of encounters, joys and disappointments, successes and failures”, he asserts with energy.

Like “the worst day” of his career, in 2009, when he learned that the ESA refused him funding for Marco Polo, a precursor mission aimed at sending a probe to collect samples of asteroids, in an attempt to bring them back to Earth. “Seven years of work going down the drain,” he recalls. Five years later, he proposed a new version, MarcoPoloR, which was also refused. Remembering these bitter defeats, Patrick Michel takes on the air of a Zen master. “These years allowed us to acquire a great deal of experience and also offered me an extraordinary human adventure with Maria Barucci, from the Paris Observatory”, which taught her to devote herself fully to space in all its aspects, notably policies.

Internal negotiations at ESA, meetings in Rome, Paris, The Hague and even “in certain secret places” with the heads of partner space agencies… His adventures take on the appearance of a spy novel which he takes on with humor. “I have incredible Chinese students, which earned me the interest of the Directorate General of Homeland Security [DGSI]”, he half-jokes. Indeed, as L’Express reported in its October 5, 2023 issue, the DGSI has set up discussions with the grandes écoles and higher education to counter the problem Chinese espionage.

“The characters in the film Armageddonit’s us !”

In any case, his relentless lobbying finally resulted, a few years later, in the validation of the American-European missions Dart and Hera. The first, led by NASA, took place on September 26, 2022, when an American ship crashed on Dimorphos, a satellite of the asteroid Didymos, with the aim of learning how to divert these stars, if necessary. adventure one of them came to threaten the Earth. The second, led by ESA, aims to send a small probe around the star in 2026 in order to map the crater formed by the collision. “Dart is the crime; Hera is the detective. The whole thing is essential to planetary defense,” summarizes Patrick Michel, also responsible for coordinating the two missions.

Will we have to thank him the day when the Earthlings avoid a scenario like Armageddon ? “In real life, the characters in the film are us, the researchers who work on these questions!” he laughs. A joke that does not mask another regret: the initial plans called for Hera to witness the impact of Dart live. The ESA unfortunately does not have the unlimited funding of Hollywood. There too, he had to fight until the end so that the mission was not canceled. As he will have to fight for the Apophis project, named after this 330 meter wide asteroid which will pass less than 40,000 kilometers from Earth on April 13, 2029. A unique opportunity to send a European vessel to study it . “This will be my last fight,” he promises, without us really being able to believe him.

“Indiana Jones-style adventures”

Because these battles are worth it, if only for these packed mission rooms, when scientists and engineers meet again after years of calculations, of plans on the comet, of hopes, “and we discover things that we absolutely did not foresee”, such as a probe which collects more rocks than expected, or the behavior of an asteroid which calls into question fundamental knowledge. “When we receive, after years of work, the first images of an asteroid coming from the probe we sent there, we have stars in our eyes, they are Indiana Jones-style adventures, except that “we don’t know if the hero – the probe – will survive. It’s incredible and moving,” he sparkles.

Great pleasures which also motivated him to write, as did the desire to send messages to the ESA, which he sometimes considers too timid in the space field, unlike the Japanese and their Hayabusa 2 mission, for which he had the distinct honor of being the only non-Japanese invited into the control room when the probe landed on Ryugu. But if he allows himself these few criticisms, it is only to advance our knowledge, he assures us. Because, if Patrick Michel has his head in the asteroids, he keeps his feet firmly glued to Earth. “The biggest battle for space science is budget.”