The European Space Agency (ESA) has announced that former Paralympian and surgeon Dr. John McFall has been medically certified to undertake a long-duration space mission.

McFall, who lost his leg in a motorcycle accident at the age of 19, was selected in 2022 to participate in ESA’s Fly! Feasibility study, which explored the challenges of sending an astronaut with a disability to the International Space Station (ISS). The study concluded in late 2024, and successfully demonstrated that it is technically feasible for an astronaut with a physical disability, such as McFall’s, to complete a six-month mission aboard the ISS as a fully integrated crew member.

With the feasibility study now complete, ESA is moving into the next phase of the program: Fly! Mission Ready, paving the way for McFall’s potential journey to space. He has not been assigned any mission at this point in time.

McFall said in a recent ESA press release, “It’s great that we can say after a huge amount of work in the last 18 months that we have demonstrated that it’s technically possible for someone with a disability like mine to fly on a long duration mission. And now we’re progressing to the next phase and what we want to do is realise that opportunity to fly, so moving forward, we’re moving into the Mission Ready phase.”

In 2014, Dr. McFall graduated with a Bachelor of Medicine and Surgery from the Cardiff University School of Medicine, UK. He later became a member of the Royal College of Surgeons in 2016.  McFall is currently taking part in ESA Astronaut Reserve training at the European Astronaut Centre in Germany.

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“It is fantastic to see that John and the team at ESA have proved it is technically possible for someone with a physical disability like his to live and work on the International Space Station,” said Liz Johns, Interim Head of Space Exploration at the UK Space Agency.