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Astronaut Birthdays for March


GordonD

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March 16th

 

Vladimir Komarov (1927) USSR

Selected 1960

Voskhod 1, 12 - 13 October 1964 (1d 0h 17m) - First multi-man spaceflight

Soyuz 1, 23 - 24 April 1967 (1d 2h 47m) - Killed when spacecraft crashed after parachutes failed to open

Total flight time 2d 3h 4m

 

First man to die whilst actually carrying out a space flight

 

 

Walter Cunningham (1932) USA

Selected 1963 (NASA Group 3)

Apollo 7, 11 - 22 October 1968 (10d 20h 9m) - First flight of the Apollo CSM

Retired August 1971

 

 

Michael Bloomfield (1959) USA

Selected 1994 (NASA Group 15)

STS-86, 26 September - 6 October 1997 (10d 19h 20m) - Seventh Mir mission; also crew exchange (Wolf up, Foale down)

STS-97, 1 - 11 December 2000 (10d 19h 57m) - Delivered the first set of solar arrays to the International Space Station

STS-110, 8 - 19 April 2002 (10d 19h 42m) - Delivered the S0 truss segment and the Mobile Transporter to the ISS

Total flight time 32d 10h 59m

Retired July 2007

 

 

 

Information from Spacefacts website

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March 17th

 

Jim Irwin (1930) USA

Selected 1966 (NASA Group 5)

Apollo 15, 26 July - 7 August 1971 (12d 7h 12m) - Eighth man on the Moon

Retired July 1972

Later led several expeditions to Mount Ararart in Turkey searching for Noah's Ark

Died 8 August 1991 (First Moonwalker to die)

 

 

Ken Mattingly (1936) USA

Selected 1966 (NASA Group 5)

Originally assigned to Apollo 13 but exposed to the German Measles virus and dropped a few days before launch (he never contracted the disease)

Apollo 16, 16 - 27 April 1972 (11d 1h 51m) - CMP on the fifth lunar landing mission

STS-4, 27 June - 4 July 1982 (7d 1h 9m) - Final Shuttle development flight; tested the manipulator arm and carried a classified DoD payload (which failed to operate)

STS-51C, 24 - 27 January 1985 (3d 1h 34m) - First classified DoD mission; most details still secret but did launch an Air Force satellite into geosynchronous orbit

Total flight time 21d 4h 34m

Retired June 1985

 

 

 

Information from Spacefacts website

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March 18th

 

James Reilly (1954) USA

Selected 1994 (NASA Group 15)

STS-89, 23 - 31 January 1998 (8d 19h 47m) - Eighth mission to Mir, with crew exchange (Thomas up; Wolf down)

STS-104, 12 - 25 July 2001 (12d 18h 35m) - Delivered the Quest Joint Airlock to the ISS

STS-117, 8 - 22 June 2007 (13d 20h 11m) - Delivered the S3/S4 truss and a set of solar arrays to the ISS. Partial crew exchange (Anderson up, Williams down)

Total flight time 35d 10h 33m

Retired May 2008

 

 

Christer Fuglesang (1957) Sweden

Selected 1992 (ESA Group 2)

STS-116, 10 - 22 December 2006 (12d 20h 44m) - Delivered the P5 truss segment to the ISS; also partial crew exchange (Williams up, Reiter down)

STS-128, 29 August - 12 September 2009 (13d 20h 53m) - Delivered the Leonardo module to the ISS; also partial crew exchange (Stott up, Kopra down)

Total flight time to date 26d 17h 37m

Still on active flight status

 

Holds a Soyuz Return Commander certificate which means he is qualified to command a Soyuz spacecraft during de-orbit and landing

 

 

 

Information from Spacefacts website

 

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March 19th

 

Sergei Anokhin (1910 - but see below) USSR

Lead test-pilot for the Soviet Air Force; survived six plane crashes, in one of which he lost an eye

Selected 1966 as head of the civilian cosmonaut training team

Rejected for flight status for health reasons

Retired May 1968

Died 15 April 1986

 

When Anokhin was born the Russian Empire was still in existence and used the Julian Calendar. Thus, technically the anniversary of his birth is 1st April. Take your pick...

 

 

 

Information from Spacefacts website

 

 

 

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2 hours ago, Eric Mc said:

Was he the earliest born cosmonaut/astronaut ever?

Yes, but only by about six years. Two guys selected for Man In Space Soonest (the project that preceded Mercury) were born in 1916 and 1918 but they never transferred to NASA. Then comes Robert Stevenson, born January 1921, who was actually assigned to a Shuttle mission but withdrew because his wife was terminally ill. He was reassigned to a later mission but that was cancelled after Challenger. Had he flown, he would have had the earliest birth date of any space traveller. That record is held by Joe Walker, born a month later, who flew two X-15 missions that exceeded the 100km cut-off point so were sub-orbital flights like Shepard and Grissom's. If you want to restrict the definition to people who went into orbit, then it's Georgi Beregovoi of Soyuz 3, born 15th April 1921.

 

The astronaut with the most recent birthdate is Zena Cardman, selected in June last year and still undergoing training, born 26 October 1988. The most recent of anybody who has actually flown is Wang Yaping of Shenzhou 9 - she was born 27 January 1980. I forgot to note that against her name in the January thread but I've gone back and added it.

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March 20th

 

Yuri Shargin (1960) Russia

Selected 1996

Soyuz TMA-5, 14 - 24 October 2004 (9d 21h 29m) ISS crew exchange, Expedition 9/10 - landed aboard Soyuz TMA-4

Retired August 2008

 

 

Ignat Ignatov (1982) Russia

Selected 2012

Retired December 2014; no flights

 

Lead Test Engineer for the neutral buoyancy lab at the Yuri Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Centre; has more than 500 hours underwater in EVA simulation

 

 

 

Information from Spacefacts website

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March 21st

 

Dirk Frimout (1941) Belgium

Selected 1985

STS-45, 24 March - 2 April 1992 (8d 22h 9m) - Atmospheric Laboratory for Applications and Science (ATLAS-1) pallet studied solar activity, the first of several planned missions over an eleven-year solar cycle

Retired April 1992

 

 

Information from Spacefacts website

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March 22nd

 

Musa Manarov (1951) USSR

Selected 1978

Soyuz TM-4/Mir Expedition 3, 21 December 1987 - 21 December 1988 (365d 22h 38m) - landed aboard Soyuz TM-6.

Soyuz TM-11/Mir Expedition 8, 2 December 1990 - 26 May 1991 (175d 1h 50m)

Total flight time 541d 0h 28m

Retired July 1992

 

 

Nicholas Patrick (1964) USA

Selected 1998 (NASA Group 17)

STS-116, 10 - 22 December 2006 (12d 20h 44m) - Delivered the P5 truss segment to the ISS; also partial crew exchange (Williams up, Reiter down)

STS-130, 8 - 22 February 2010 (13d 18h 6m) - Delivered the Tranquility module and the Cupola viewport module to the ISS

Total flight time 26d 14h 50m

Retired May 2012

 

Born in Saltburn, North Yorkshire but is a US citizen

 

 

Information from Spacefacts website

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March 24th

 

Yuri Ponomaryov (1932) USSR

Selected 1972

Backed up two Soyuz missions but never flew

Retired April 1983

Died 16 April 2005

 

Wife Valentina Ponomaryova was also an unflown cosmonaut

 

 

 

Lodewijk van der Berg (1932) USA

Selected 1983

STS-51B, 29 April - 6 May 1985 (7d 0h 8m) - Spacelab 3

Retired May 1985

 

Born in Sluiskil, Netherlands but became a US citizen

 

 

 

Kenneth Reightler (1951) USA

Selected 1987 (NASA Group 12)

STS-48, 13 - 18 September 1991 (5d 8h 27m) - deployed the Upper Atmosphere Research Satellite

STS-60, 3 - 11 February 1994 (8d 7h 9m) - SPACEHAB mission; first Shuttle flight to carry a Russian cosmonaut (Krikalev)

Total flight time 13d 15h 36m

Retired July 2005

 

 

 

Scott Horowitz (1957) USA

Selected 1992 (NASA Group 14)

STS-75, 22 February - 9 March 1996 (15d 17h 40m) - Deployed the Italian-built Tethered Satellite System but tether broke and satellite lost

STS-82, 11 - 21 February 1997 (9d 23h 37m) - Second Hubble Space Telescope servicing mission

STS-101, 19 - 29 May 2000 (9d 20h 9m) - ISS supply mission. First flight of Atlantis with the new glass cockpit

STS-105, 10 - 22 August 2001 (11d 21h 12m) - iSS supply mission; also crew exchange (Expedition 3 up, Expedition 2 down)

Total flight time 47d 10h 38m

Retired October 2004

 

 

 

Information from Spacefacts website

 

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March 25th

 

Jim Lovell (1928) USA

Selected 1962 (NASA Group 2)

Gemini VII, 4 - 18 December 1965 (13d 18h 35m) - Passive spacecraft in the first orbital rendezvous (with Gemini VI-A)

Gemini XII, 11 - 15 November 1966 (3d 22h 34m) - Last Gemini mission; docked with Agena target and Pilot (Aldrin) carried out numerous EVA activities

Apollo 8, 21 - 27 December 1968 (6d 3h 0m) - First manned lunar orbit

Apollo 13, 11 - 17 April 1970 (5d 22h 54m) - Planned as third lunar landing; aborted following explosion in the Service Module but crew survived

Total flight time 29d 19h 3m

Retired March 1973

 

First man to make four spaceflights

 

 

 

Aleksei Grechanik (1939) USSR

Selected 1978

Involved in the design of a military space station and trained for a flight to one but programme cancelled

Retired 1987; no flights

 

 

 

Liu Wang (1969) China

Selected 1998

Shenzhou 9/Tiangong 1 Expedition 1, 16 - 29 June 2012 (12d 15h 25m)

Still on active flight status 

 

 

 

Information from Spacefacts website

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March 26th

 

Albert Crews (1929) USA

Selected 1962 (X-20 Group)

Trained to fly the X-20 Dyno-Soar; when that project was cancelled transferred to the Air Force Manned Orbiting Laboratory but that was cancelled too

Retired July 1969; no flights

 

 

 

Yuri Gidzenko (1962) USSR

Selected 1987

Soyuz TM-22/Mir Expedition 20, 3 September 1995 - 29 February 1996 (179d 1h 41m)

Soyuz TM-31/ISS Expedition 1, 31 October 2000 - 21 March 2001 (140d 23h 38m) - landed aboard STS-102

Soyuz TM-34/ISS Taxi Flight 3, 25 April - 5 May 2002 (9d 21h 25m) - landed aboard Soyuz TM-33

Total flight time 329d 22h 44m

Retired July 2001

 

The Soyuz TM-31 crew was the last to be launched into space when there was nobody already in orbit: since 31 October 2000 there has been a continuous human presence in space, as of today standing at 6,355 days and counting. Docking with the ISS took place on 2 November so the space station has been occupied for two days fewer.

 

As previously stated a Taxi Flight is when a Soyuz docks with a space station and after a relatively short visit (typically a week to ten days) its crew return to Earth in the spacecraft that was already docked there, leaving their own fresher capsule for the future use of the resident crew. This allows crews to remain aboard the space station for longer than the 'shelf life' of their original spacecraft. These flights are no longer required as improved systems mean the Soyuz craft can remain operational for much longer than earlier versions.

 

 

 

Information from Spacefacts website

 

 

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March 28th

 

Wubbo Ockels (1946) The Netherlands

Selected 1978 (ESA Group 1)

STS-61A, 30 October - 6 November 1985 (7d 0hy 44m) - Spacelab-D1 West German financed mission - First Dutch citizen in space

Retired 1994

Died 18 May 2014

 

 

Information from Spacefacts website

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29 minutes ago, Eric Mc said:

Hadn't realised that Wubbo Ockels had died.

He survived a major heart attack in 2005 but died from kidney cancer.

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March 29th

 

Aleksei Gubarev (1931) USSR

Selected 1963

Soyuz 17/Salyut 4, 10 January - 9 February 1975 (29d 13h 19m) 

Soyuz 28/Salyut 6 Visiting Flight 1, 2 - 10 March 1978 (7d 22h 16m) - first flight of a non Soviet/US spaceman (Czechoslovakia)

Total flight time 37d 11h 35m

Retired September 1981

Died 21 February 2015

 

A Visiting Flight is similar to a Taxi Flight except there is no exchange of spacecraft - the cosmonauts land in the same capsule in which they were launched. These tended to take place early in the Salyut or Mir Expeditions when there was not yet any need to provide a fresh spacecraft for the resident crew

 

 

 

Aleksander Viktorenko (1947) USSR

Selected 1978

Soyuz TM-3/Mir Visiting Flight 1, 22 - 30 July 1987 (7d 23h 4m) - Landed in Soyuz TM-2; partial crew exchange (Aleksandrov up, Levchenko down)

Soyuz TM-8/Mir Expedition 5, 5 September 1989 - 19 February 1990 (166d 6h 58m)

Soyuz TM-14/Mir Expedition 11, 17 March - 10 August 1992 (145d 14h 10m)

Soyuz TM-20/Mir Expedition 17, 3 October 1994 - 22 March 1995 (169d 5h 21m)

Total flight time 489d 1h 33m

Retired May 1997

 

 

 

Michael Foreman (1957) USA

Selected 1998 (NASA Group 17)

STS-123, 11 - 27 March 2008 (15d 18h 11m) - Delivered manipulator arm and Japanese Kibo module to the ISS; partial crew exchange (Reisman up, Eyharts down)

STS-129, 16 - 27 November 2009 (10d 19h 16m) - Delivered spare gyroscopes and other equipment and supplies to the ISS

Total flight time 26d 13h 27m

Retired December 2010

 

 

 

William Oefelein (1965) USA

Selected 1998 (NASA Group 17)

STS-116, 10 - 22 December 2006 (12d 20h 44m) - Delivered the P5 truss segment to the ISS; also partial crew exchange (Williams up, Reiter down)

Dismissed from NASA June 2007

 

Oefelein gained media attention on 5 February 2007 when fellow astronaut Lisa Nowak was arrested in Florida and charged with attempting to kidnap his girlfriend, U.S. Air Force Captain Colleen Shipman. Nowak later pleaded guilty to felony burglary and misdemeanor battery. Oefelein admitted to a two-year affair with Nowak, and he and Nowak became the first astronauts ever dismissed from NASA.  

 

 

 

Information from Spacefacts website and Wikipedia

 

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March 30

 

Aleksei Sorokin (1931) USSR

Selected 1964

Backup Doctor Cosmonaut for Voskhod 1

Retired 1964; no flights

Died 11 January 1976

 

 

 

Joseph Prahl (1943) USA

Selected 1990

Backup for US Microgravity Lab 1 on STS-50

Retired 1992; no flights

 

 

 

Yelena Kondakova (1957) USSR

Selected 1989

Soyuz TM-20/Mir Expedition 17, 3 October 1994 - 22 March 1995 (169d 5h 21m)

STS-84, 15 - 24 May 1997 (9d 5h 20m) - Sixth Shuttle-Mir docking; crew exchange (Foale up, Lineger down)

Total flight time 178d 10h 41m

Retired December 1999

 

Married to cosmonaut Valeri Ryumin

 

 

 

Information from Spacefacts website

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March 31st

 

Grigori Nelyubov (1934) USSR

Selected 1960

Discharged from cosmonaut group for disciplinary reasons: drunk and disorderly conduct at Chkalovskaka Station together with Ivan Anikeyev and Valentin Filatyev. According to reports, the duty officer agreed to ignore the whole incident if Nelyubov apologised, but he refused, and the matter was reported to the authorities. Because there were previous incidents, all three were dismissed from the cosmonaut corps on April 17, 1963, though officially not until May 4, 1963. Pavel Popovich, secretary of the party organisation, tried to resolve the situation by calling a party meeting where Nelyubov was once again invited to apologise to the patrol chief and to the other cosmonauts, but he again refused. He was dismissed, never having completed a space mission, and thereafter suffered from alcoholism and depression.

Died 18 February 1966 after stepping in front of a train: his death was officially ruled a suicide. To protect the image of the space programme, efforts were made to cover up the reason for Nelyubov's dismissal and his following suicide. His image was airbrushed out of the "Sochi Six" photo which showed the top members of the original class of Soviet cosmonauts. This airbrushing led to speculation about "lost cosmonauts".

 

 

 

Patrick Forrester (1957) USA

Selected 1996 (NASA Group 16)

STS-105, 10 - 22 August 2001 (11d 21h 12m) - Delivered equipment and supplies to the ISS; also crew exchange (Expedition 3 up; Expedition 2 down)

STS-117, 8 - 22 June 2007 (13d 20h 11m) - Delivered the S3/S4 truss and a set of solar arrays to the ISS. Partial crew exchange (Anderson up, Williams down)

STS-128, 29 August - 12 September 2009 (13d 20h 53m) - Delivered the Leonardo module to the ISS; also partial crew exchange (Stott up, Kopra down)

Total flight time 39d 14h 16m

Retired August 2011

 

 

 

Information from Spacefacts website and Wikipedia

 

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