NAME:
Christer Fuglesang
ESA ASTRONAUT
PERSONAL
DATA: Born March
18, 1957 in Stockholm, Sweden. Married to the former Elisabeth Walldie. They
have three children. He enjoys sports, sailing, skiing, frisbee, games and
reading.
EDUCATION: Graduated from Bromma Gymnasium,
Stockholm, Sweden, in 1975; received a master of science degree in Engineering
Physics from the Royal Institute of Technology (KTH), Stockholm, Sweden, in
1981; received a doctorate in Experimental Particle Physics from the University
of Stockholm in 1987. He became a Docent in Particle Physics at the University
of Stockholm in 1991.
SPECIAL
HONORS: Awarded an
Honorary Doctorate from Umea University, Sweden, in October 1999.
EXPERIENCE: As a graduate student, Fuglesang worked
at CERN (European Research Center on Particle Physics) in Geneva on the UA5
experiment, which studied proton-antiproton collisions.
In 1988 he
became a Fellow of CERN, where he worked on the CPLEAR experiment studying the
subtle CP-violation of Kaon-particles. After a year he became a Senior Fellow
and head of the particle identification subdetector. In November 1990,
Fuglesang obtained a position at the Manne Siegbahn Institute of Physics,
Stockholm, but remained stationed at CERN for another year working towards the
new large hadron collider project. Since 1980, when stationed in Sweden,
Fuglesang taught mathematics at the Royal Institute of Technology.
In May
1992, Fuglesang was selected to join the Astronaut Corps of the European
Space Agency (ESA) based at the European Astronaut Centre (EAC) in Cologne,
Germany. In 1992 he attended an introductory training programme at EAC and a
four-week training program at TsPK (Cosmonauts Training Center) in Star City,
Russia, with a view to future ESA-Russian collaboration on the Mir
Space Station. In July 1993, he completed the basic training course at EAC.
In May
1993, Fuglesang and fellow ESA astronaut, Thomas
Reiter, were selected for the Euromir 95 mission and commenced training at
TsPK (Moscow) in preparation for their onboard engineer tasks, extra-vehicular
activities (spacewalks) and operation of the Soyuz spacecraft. The Euromir 95
experiment training was organized and mainly carried out at EAC.
On 17 March
1995, he was selected as a member of Crew 2, the backup crew for the Euromir
95 mission, joining Genadi Manakov and Pavel Vinogradov. During the
mission, which lasted 179 days, Fuglesang was the prime crew interface
coordinator. From the Russian Mission Control Center (TsUP) in Kaliningrad, he
was the main contact with Reiter, on Mir, and acted as coordinator between Mir
and the Euromir 95 Payloads Operations Control Center, located in
Oberpfaffenhofen, Germany, and project management.
Between
March and June 1996, he underwent specialized training in TsPK on Soyuz
operations for de-docking, atmospheric re-entry and landing.
NASA
EXPERIENCE: Christer
Fuglesang entered the Mission Specialist Class at NASA Johnson Space Center, Houston, in
August 1996, and qualified for flight assignment as a mission specialist in
April 1998. From May to October 1998, he resumed training at TsPK on Soyuz-TM
spacecraft operations for de-docking, atmospheric re-entry and landing. He was
awarded the Russian 'Soyuz Return Commander' certificate, which qualifies him
to command a three-person Soyuz capsule on its return from space.
In October
1998 he returned to NASA-JSC and was assigned technical duties in the Astronaut
Office Station Operations System Branch on Russian Transfer Vehicles (i.e.
Soyuz and Progress). Later he worked as prime Increment Crew Support Astronaut
for the Expedition Corps of the 2nd
International Space Station increment crew. Christer Fuglesang has
continued with some scientific work and was involved with the SilEye experiment
which investigated light flashes in astronaut's eyes on Mir between 1995 and
1999. This work is continuing on the International Space Station
(ISS) with the Alteino and ALTEA apparatuses. The former is on ISS since 2002,
the latter is planned to fly to the ISS in 2005. He has also initiated the
DESIRE project to simulate and estimate the radiation environment inside ISS.
Christer
Fuglesang is a member of ESA's European Astronaut Corps, whose home base is the
European Astronaut Center located in Cologne, Germany. He is assigned
collateral duties in the NASA-JSC Astronaut Office and most recently was
assigned to the ISS Payload Branch. Currently, he is assigned to the crew of STS-116,
an assembly and crew-rotation mission to the International Space
Station.
Last
updated: January 2005
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