Space rookie marks debut trip with food from leading chefs

Pesquet to blast off for International Space Station with haute cuisine and a saxophone

A French astronaut will join Russian and US counterparts blasting off on Friday for the International Space Station, taking some Michelin-starred cuisine along to help celebrate in gastronomic style while in Earth's orbit.

French space rookie Thomas Pesquet, 38, will lift off from the Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan with veteran US and Russian colleagues Peggy Whitson and Oleg Novitsky, for a six-month mission to the ISS.