Christer Fuglesang

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**Christer Fuglesang**
Astronaut

Nationality	Swedish
Born	March 18, 1957 Stockholm, Sweden
Occupation¹	Physicist
Rank	Astronaut, ESA
Space time	Currently in orbit
Selection	1996 NASA Group
Mission(s)	STS-116
Mission insignia
¹ previous or current

Arne Christer Fuglesang (born March 18, 1957) is the first Swedish astronaut. He was launched aboard the STS-116 Shuttle mission on 10 December 2006, at 01:47 GMT, making him the first Swede and the first Scandinavian in space.^[1]^[2]

1 Personal and education
2 Experience
- 2.1 NASA experience
3 Trivia
4 Notes and references
5 External links

[ and education">edit] Personal and education

Christer Fuglesang was born in Stockholm to a Swedish mother and a Norwegian father, who became a Swedish citizen shortly before Fuglesang's birth. Fuglesang received a master of science degree in engineering physics from the Royal Institute of Technology (KTH), in Stockholm in 1981, and received a doctorate in experimental particle physics from Stockholm University in 1987. He became an associate professor (docent) of particle physics at Stockholm University in 1991.

He married Elisabeth (Lisa) Fuglesang (née Walldie) in 1983, whom he met at the Royal Institute of Technology (KTH). They have three children.

He also holds an honorary doctorate at Umeå University in Sweden.

[edit] 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 1990, 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 Gennadi 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 ESA Astronaut, Thomas 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.

[edit] NASA experience

Christer Fuglesang practicing underwater EVA simulation for STS-116.

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 astronauts' 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. This flight is called the Celsius Mission by ESA in recognition of Anders Celsius, the Swedish 18th century astronomer who invented the Celsius temperature scale.

[edit] Trivia

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Fuglesang greeting Sweden, Norway and Europe from the launch pad.

His surname Fuglesang means bird song in Norwegian (as well as in Danish). In Christer Fuglesang's case, the name is of Norwegian origin since Christer Fuglesang's father comes from Norway.
He was once a Swedish national Frisbee champion, holding the national title in "maximum time aloft" in 1978, and subsequently competed in the 1981 World Frisbee Championship.^[3] Fuglesang will take one of his personal Frisbees to the International Space Station.^[4]
He is an Amateur Radio Operator, holding the US callsign KE5CGR and the Swedish callsign SA0AFS.^[5]
He took dried moose meat (his first choice of dried reindeer meat was rejected by NASA),^[6]^[7] crisp bread and ginger snaps with him into space^[8]
Fuglesang, who waited fourteen years before finally entering space, was the inspiration for the eponymous character in Percy tårar, a 1996 Swedish television comedy; one of the show's storylines was about Fuglesang's futile attempts to get into space.^[9]
He is an outspoken atheist.^[10]
He has run the Stockholm Marathon three times, 1986, 1987 and 1988, with a best time of 3.15.05, placing him among the 10% best participants. He brought a medal from the race into space.^[11]