Jean-Pierre Haigneré

Fighter Pilot and Test Pilot, and Astronaut

Jean-Pierre Haigneré graduated with an engineering degree in 1971 from the École de l'Air in Salon-de-Provence. He is also a qualified fighter pilot, holds a commercial pilot license, a test pilot license, and licenses for mountain and seaplane flying. He initially pursued a career as a pilot and squadron commander, accumulating 5,500 flight hours on 102 different types of aircraft, including nearly 1,800 hours in flight testing. Retired Air Force General, selected as an astronaut by CNES in 1985, he supervised the Manned Flights Division within the Hermes and Manned Flights Directorate from 1986 to 1989. In this capacity, he participated in the preliminary studies for the Hermes spaceplane.

Employability:: Conference
Languages:: English, French, Russian
Categories:: Astronomy

Science

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About Jean-Pierre Haigneré

Jean-Pierre Haigneré graduated with an engineering degree in 1971 from the École de l’Air in Salon-de-Provence. He is also a qualified fighter pilot, holds a commercial pilot license, a test pilot license, and licenses for mountain and seaplane flying. He initially pursued a career as a pilot and squadron commander, accumulating 5,500 flight hours on 102 different types of aircraft, including nearly 1,800 hours in flight testing.

Retired Air Force General, selected as an astronaut by CNES in 1985, he supervised the Manned Flights Division within the Hermes and Manned Flights Directorate from 1986 to 1989. In this capacity, he participated in the preliminary studies for the Hermes spaceplane. In December 1990, he was designated as the backup for Michel Tognini for the Franco-Russian space flight Antarès and underwent training at the Star City near Moscow.

In May 1998, Jean-Pierre Haigneré was selected as a member of the European Astronaut Corps of the European Space Agency; he was made available to CNES as a mission specialist astronaut and onboard engineer for the designated crew for the Franco-Russian PERSEUS mission, which took place aboard the Mir space station from February 22 to August 28, 1999. This long-duration mission (186 days) also included a spacewalk.

Following this flight, Jean-Pierre Haigneré joined the European Astronaut Centre in Cologne, Germany, as Head of ESA Astronauts (European Space Agency).

He is a Commander of the Legion of Honor, Knight of the National Order of Merit; a member of the Russian Order of Courage and a recipient of the Russian Medal for Personal Courage.