Jean-Pierre Haigneré

From 1973 to 1980, Jean-Pierre Haigneré was an officer fighter pilot in the 13th Fighter Squadron at Colmar on Mirage 5, then Squadron Leader in the SPA 100 squadron on Mirage IIIE, and won the Air Defence Cup in 1985. He was posted to the Brétigny-sur-Orge Flight Test Centre in 1981 as project test pilot in the development of the Mirage 2000N and promoted to Chief Test Pilot in 1983. His experience covers test flight time on almost every military aircraft in service in the French air force from 1970 to1985 (fighter and transport) and most categories of civil aircraft (microlights to airliners). In September 1986, Jean-Pierre Haigneré was one of seven astronauts selected by the French Space Agency (CNES) and headed the Manned Flight Division of the Hermès and Manned Flight Directorate until 1990. In December 1990, Jean-Pierre Haigneré underwent training at the Russian Star City cosmonaut training centre near Moscow. After seven months he was selected for a 21-day mission on board the Soyouz TM-16 and Soyouz TM-17 and the Russian Mir space station (1-22 July 1993). From January 1997 to February 1998, Jean-Pierre Haigneré resumed training at Star City as the back-up astronaut for the 6th French-Russian Pegase space mission. He joined ESA’s European astronaut corps in June 1998 and was cosmonaut flight engineer for the Franco-Russian Perseus mission. It was the last international mission to the Mir space station which was allowed to deorbit and crash into the Pacific in 2001. With a flight duration of 189 days (20 February- 28 August 1999), including a spacewalk, he undertook the longest flight on record at the time for a non-Russian astronaut. Jean-Pierre Haigneré was the European astronaut with the longest experience in space during a period of 22 years, with 210 days spent on the Mir station.

Spoken languages: English and French

Photo credit: ARR