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LONGUEUIL, Que. - There will be a lot of guitar-strumming at the International Space Station once veteran Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield and two fellow travellers arrive there in late 2012 for a six-month stay.
The 18-year space veteran is an avid guitar lover — in fact, the mission patch he will be wearing on his space suit is in the form of a guitar pick.
Hadfield, who's been playing the instrument since he was a child, says he's just itching to pluck the strings of a guitar from the Larrivee company in Vancouver that has been on the space station for years.
"I'm no great musician, but I really enjoy music," he admitted Thursday after it was officially announced he will become the first Canadian commander of the giant orbiting laboratory.
"To have this opportunity is extremely challenging, extremely exciting for me and extremely rewarding as well," Hadfield told a news conference at the Canadian Space Agency in Longueuil, Que.
"It's still over two years away. I still have to pass two more of the toughest physicals of anybody on Earth before they'll let me get into that Soyuz and go dock at the space station."
It will be the 51-year-old Hadfield's third space mission.
When he blasts off at the age of 53, Hadfield will not be the oldest Canadian ever to go into space. Bob Thirsk was 56 when he was in orbit last year.
Hadfield also pointed out he even brought along a guitar during his first space trip when he visited the Russian station Mir in 1995.
Hadfield's second cosmic voyage was to the International Space Station in April 2001 when he also performed two walks.
Over the years, Hadfield has played regularly in a couple of bands, even getting in some licks with rocker Randy Bachman.
Hadfield, who was first selected to become an astronaut in June 1992, will be one of six crew members on the space station.
"To be trusted with their lives and with that entire station on behalf of all the world's space-faring nations, most specifically on behalf of Canada, is a tremendous honour," he said.
He will travel up to the space station in a Russian Soyuz spacecraft, along with NASA astronaut Tom Marshburn and Russian cosmonaut Roman Romanenko.
Hadfield pointed out that Romanenko was also a guitar player who played with U2 in Moscow last week, while Marshburn is a classical guitarist.
"So between the three of us there will be lots of guitar playing," he added.
Hadfield says he plans to play his Canadian-made guitar while looking down on Earth from the big bay window in the cupola on the space station.
He also told The Canadian Press the exact launch date has yet to be determined.
"Somewhere around the end of November, early December (2012), we'll launch on our Soyuz, we'll dock, we'll join the three guys that are up there," he said.
Hadfield will spend the last two or three months of his mission as commander of the other astronauts aboard the space station.
"I'll take over command in March and we will land sometime in late May, early June," he said.
Hadfield has been waiting for this opportunity since he was a young boy.
"Since I was nine, I've been trying to ready myself for the day that, not only I might fly in space, but maybe actually command a space ship," he said.
In May of this year, Hadfield commanded NEEMO 14, a two-week underwater mission for NASA off the coast of Florida.
