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Christer Fuglesang

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Christer Fuglesang

ESA Astronaut
Nationality	Swedish
Status	Active
Born	March 18, 1957 Stockholm, Sweden
Other occupation	Physicist
Space time	12d 20h 52m
Selection	1992 ESA Group
Missions	STS-116
Mission insignia

Arne Christer Fuglesang (born March 18, 1957) is a Swedish scientist and an ESA 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 Nordic citizen in space.^[1]

1 Personal and education
2 Career
- 2.1 STS-116
  - 2.1.1 Spacewalks during STS-116 Mission
  - 2.1.2 'Maximum Time Aloft'
3 Trivia
4 Notes and references
5 External links

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 received honorary doctorates from Umeå University, Sweden and University of Nova Gorica, Slovenia.

Career

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 astronaut 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.

Christer Fuglesang participating in EVA on STS-116

In 1996, ESA selected Fuglesang to train as a Mission Specialist for NASA Space Shuttle missions. He joined 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 and was assigned technical duties in the Astronaut Office Station Operations System Branch on Russian Soyuz and Progress transfer vehicles. Later he worked as prime Increment Crew Support Astronaut for the Expedition Corps of the second International Space Station increment crew. Fuglesang also 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.

STS-116

Fuglesang's first spaceflight mission was as a Mission Specialist on STS-116, an assembly and crew-rotation mission to the International Space Station. This flight was called the Celsius Mission by ESA in recognition of Anders Celsius, the Swedish 18th century astronomer who invented the Celsius temperature scale.

Spacewalks during STS-116 Mission

First spacewalk with the primary task of Installation of the P5 truss segment performed together with Astronaut Robert Curbeam as EV1.
EV2 during second spacewalk which included first part of rewiring the power system of the ISS specifically channel 2 and 3. Also performed together with Astronaut Robert Curbeam as EV1.
An extra spacewalk (EVA4) attempting, successfully, to fix a problem when retracting a solar panel. Also performed together with Astronaut Robert Curbeam as EV1. EVA duration: 6h 38min.

Total EVA time during STS-116: 18 hours and 15 minutes.

'Maximum Time Aloft'

Fuglesang, once a Swedish national Frisbee champion, held the national title in "maximum time aloft" in 1978, and subsequently competed in the 1981 World Frisbee Championship.^[2] Fuglesang took one of his personal frisbees to the International Space Station. On Dec 15 he set a new "world record" for Time Aloft by freefloating a spinning frisbee for 20 seconds in the 'zero g' environment of the ISS. It was done during a live broadcast interview with a space exhibition in Stockholm Sweden. It should be noted that the record attempt was recognised by the sports governing body, the World Flying Disc Federation, and that the record was accepted. But since it was set "outside the earth's atmosphere" it was recorded as 'Galactic Record'^[3]^[4]

Trivia

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

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 character "Christer Blygdeslapp" 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 four times, 1986, 1987, 1988 and 2007 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]
When studying at KTH he held a leading role in the bi-annual spex Fysikalen arranged by the engineering physics students at KTH.