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Astronaut Birthdays for April


GordonD

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April 1st

 

William Fisher (1946) USA

Selected 1980 (NASA Group 9)

STS-51I, 27 August - 3 September 1985 (7d 2h 17m) - Deployed three satellites and retrieved, repaired and relaunched Syncom IV-3, previously deployed on STS-51D but failed to activate

Retired 31 January 1991

 

Was previously married to astronaut Anna Fisher

 

 

 

Sergei Volkov (1973) - Russia

Selected 1997

Soyuz TMA-12/ISS Expedition 17, 8 April - 24 October 2008 (198d 16h 20m)

Soyuz TMA-02M/ISS Expeditions 28/29, 7 June - 22 November 2011 (167d 6h 12m)

Soyuz TMA-18M/ISS Expeditions 45/46, 2 September 2015 - 3 February 2016 (181d 23h 48m)

Total flight time 547d 22h 20m

Retired February 2017

 

 

 

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April 3rd

 

Aleksandr Yablontsev (USSR) 1955

Selected 1989

Selected for Buran (Soviet Shuttle) but programme cancelled

Retired 1996; no flights

Killed in crash of Sukhoi Superjet 100 during a demonstration flight, 9 May 2012

 

 

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April 4th

 

Vladimir Degtyarov (1932) USSR

Selected 1965

Underwent basic cosmonaut training but retired January 1966; no flights

 

 

 

Vladimir Isakov (1940) USSR

Selected 1967

Trained for a mission aboard the Almaz military space station

Retired 1983; no flights

 

 

 

Satoshi Furukawa (1964) Japan

Selected 1999

Soyuz TMA-02M/ISS Expeditions 28/29, 7 June - 22 November 2011 (167d 6h 12m)

Still on active flight status

 

 

 

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April 5th

 

Judy Resnik (1949) USA

Selected 1978 (NASA Group 8)

STS-41D, 30 August - 5 September 1984 (6d 0h 56m)

Killed in STS-51L Challenger accident, 28 January 1986 (not classed as a space flight as the vehicle did not reach 100km altitude)

 

 

 

Franklin Chang-Diaz (1950) USA

Selected 1980 (NASA Group 9)

STS-61C, 12 - 18 January 1986 (6d 2h 3m) - Deployed Satcom K-1 satellite; also carried Materials Science Laboratory 2

STS-34, 18 - 23 October 1989 (4d 23h 39m) - Deployed the Galileo Jupiter probe

STS-46, 31 July - 8 August 1992 (7d 23h 15m) - Deployed EURECA (European Retrieval Carrier) pallet, also the Italian Tethered Satellite; cable jammed

STS-60, 3 - 11 February 1994 (8d 7h 9m) - Carried the Wake Shield Facility semiconductor growth experiment; first flight of a Russian (Krikalev) on the Shuttle

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

STS-91, 2 - 12 June 1998 (9d 19h 54m) - Ninth and final docking with Mir; Thomas returned to Earth (no replacement)

STS-111, 5 - 19 June 2002 (13d 20h 35m) - Delivered supplies to the ISS; also crew rotation (Expedition 5 up; Expedition 4 down)

Total flight time 66d 18h 15m

Retired July 2005

 

Second man to make seven spaceflights (but only the third to make seven launches!)

 

 

 

Renate Brümmer (1955) Germany

Selected 1987

Backup for STS-55 (Spacelab D-2)

Retired 1993; no flights

 

 

 

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17 minutes ago, GordonD said:

Second man to make seven spaceflights (but not seven launches!)

How does that work? Isn't it like the normal flying ideal of the number of landings equalling the number of take-offs?

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1 hour ago, Steve Coombs said:

How does that work? Isn't it like the normal flying ideal of the number of landings equalling the number of take-offs?

I can see I worded it badly. I've now amended the post.

 

The explanation is that John Young was launched twice on Apollo 16 - the second time from the lunar surface.

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April 6th

 

Paulo Nespoli (1957) Italy

Selected 1998

STS-120, 23 October - 7 November 2007 (15d 2h 23m) - Delivered the Harmony module to the ISS; also partial crew exchange  (Tani up, Anderson down)

Soyuz TMA-20/ISS Expeditions 26/27, 15 December 2010 - 24 May 2011 (159d 7h 17m)

Soyuz MS-05/ISS Expeditions 52/53, 28 July - 14 December 2017 (138d 16h 56m)

Total flight time to date 313d 2h 36m

Still on active flight status

 

 

Michael Barratt (1959) USA

Selected 2000 (NASA Group 18)

Soyuz TMA-14/ISS Expeditions 19/20, 26 March - 11 October 2009 (198d 16h 42m)

STS-133, 24 February - 9 March 2011 (12d 19h 4m) - Delivered Leonardo module to the ISS; final flight of Discovery  

Total flight time to date 211d 11h 46m

Still on active flight status

 

 

 

Information from Spacefacts website

 

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April 7th

 

Donald Holmquest (1939) USA

Selected 1967 (NASA Group 6)

Retired September 1973; no flights

 

 

 

Tim Peake (1972) United Kingdom - Oh, you know who he is!

Selected 2009 (ESA Group 3)

Soyuz TMA-19M/ISS Expeditions 46/47, 15 December 2015 - 18 June 2016 (185d 22h 11m)

Still on active flight status

 

 

 

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April 9th

 

Vasily Shcheglov (1940) USSR

Selected 1965

Named for a Soyuz flight (repeating the Soyuz 4/5 docking) but mission cancelled

Retired for medical reasons October 1972; no flights

Died of lung cancer 16 July 1973

 

 

 

Kenneth Cockrell (1950) USA

Selected 1990 (NASA Group 13)

STS-56, 8 - 17 April 1993 (9d 6h 8m) - Carried the ATLAS-2 Spacelab (Atmospheric Laboratory for Applications and Science)

STS-69, 7 - 18 September 1995 (10d 20h 28m) - Deployed and retrieved the Wake Shield Facility for research into semiconductor film growth, and SPARTAN-201 pallet

STS-80, 19 November - 7 December 1996 (17d 17h 53m) - Deployed and retrieved ORFEUS-SPAS II and the Wake Shield Facility (third flight)

STS-98, 7 - 20 February 2001 (12d 21h 20m) - Delivered the Destiny Module to the ISS

STS-111, 5 - 19 June 2002 (13d 20h 35m) - Delivered and retrieved the Leonardo Module to the ISS; also crew exchange (Expedition 5 up; Expedition 4 down)

Total flight time 64d 12h 24m

Retired February 2006

 

 

 

Tim Kopra (1963) USA

Selected 2000 (NASA Group 18)

STS-127/ISS Expedition 20, 15 July - 12 September 2009 (58d 2h 50m) - landed aboard STS-128

Soyuz TMA-19M/ISS Expeditions 46/47, 15 December 2015 - 18 June 2016 (185d 22h 11m)

Total flight time to date 244d 1h 1m

Still on active flight status

 

 

 

 

Serena Auñón-Chancellor (1976)

Selected 2009 (NASA Group 20)

Still on active flight status; no assignments yet

 

 

 

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April 11th

 

Greg Neubeck (1932) USA

Selected 1965 (USAF MOL Group 1)

Candidate for a Manned Orbiting Laboratory mission but programme cancelled

Retired June 1969; no flights

 

 

 

Rick Hauck (1941) USA

Selected 1978 (NASA Group 8)

STS-7, 18 - 24 June 1983 (6d 2h 24m) - Deployed Anik C-2 and Palapa B-1 comsats; deployed and retrieved the SPAS-01 experiment pallet

STS-51A, 8 - 16 November 1984 (7d 23h 44m) - Deployed two comsats then recovered and brought back to Earth two more which had failed on a previous mission

STS-26, 29 September - 3 October 1988 (4d 1h 0m) - First post-Challenger flight - deployed Tracking & Data Relay Satellite to improve spacecraft communications

Total flight time 18d 3h 8m

Retired April 1989

 

 

 

Anatoli Berezovoi (1942) USSR

Selected 1970

Soyuz T-5/Salyut 7 Expedition 1, 13 May - 10 December 1982 (211d 9h 4m) - landed aboard Soyuz T-7

Retired October 1992

Died 20 September 2014

 

 

 

Piers Sellers (1955) USA - Born Crowborough, Sussex but became US Citizen

Selected 1996 (NASA Group 16)

STS-112, 7 - 18 October 2002 (10d 19h 58m) - Delivered S1 Truss to the ISS

STS-121, 4 - 17 July 2006 (12d 18h 36m) - Expanded ISS Expedition 6 crew to three (Reiter up); had been reduced to two for logistical reasons when Shuttle grounded

STS-132, 14 - 26 May 2010 (11d 18h 28m) - Delivered the Russian Rassvet Module to the ISS; Sellers carried a four-inch piece of wood from Newton's apple tree

Total flight time 35d 9h 2m

Retired June 2011

Died of pancreatic cancer 23 December 2016

 

 

 

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April 12th - Yuri's Night

 

Russell Rogers (1926) USA

Selected 1962 (USAF X-20 Group)

Trained to fly the Dyna-Soar spaceplane but programme cancelled

Retired December 1963

Died in plane crash at Kadena AFB, Okinawa, 13 September 1967 (ejected but parachute did not open properly)

 

 

 

Igor Volk (1937) USSR

Selected 1977

Soyuz T-12/Salyut 7 Visiting Flight 2, 17 - 29 July 1984 (11d 19h 14m)

Flew the Salyut mission to give him spaceflight experience ahead of piloting the Buran Shuttle but programme was cancelled

Retired 1996

Died 3 January 2017

 

 

 

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April 13th

 

Jean-Jacques Favier (1949) France

Selected 1985 (ESA Group 2)

STS-78, 20 June - 7 July 1996 (16d 21h 47m) - Spacelab Life & Microgravity Sciences

Retired July 1996

 

 

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I have an early start tomorrow and Sunday and won't have time to post the birthdays, so here they are in advance:

 

April 14th

 

Bill Thornton (1929) USA

Selected 1967 (NASA Group 6)

STS-8, 30 August - 5 September 1983 (6d 1h 8m)

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

Total flight time 13d 1h 16m

Retired May 1994

 

 

 

Eduard Stepanov (1937) USSR

Selected 1965

Involved with the development of Buran; trained for Soyuz and Almaz programmes

Retired October 1992; no flights

Died 19 October 2015

 

 

 

Anatoli Fyodorov (1941) USSR

Selected 1965

Underwent basic cosmonaut training but never assigned to a mission

Retired May 1974; no flights

Died 21 March 2002

 

 

 

Valentin Lebedev (1942) USSR

Selected 1972

Soyuz 13, 18 - 26 December 1973 (7d 20h 55m) - Carried out astrophysical studies using the onboard Orion 2 Space Observatory; observed Comet Kohoutek

Soyuz T-5/Salyut 7 Expedition 1, 13 May - 10 December 1982 (211d 9h 4m) - landed aboard Soyuz T-7

Total flight time 219d 5h 59m

Retired February 1993

 

 

 

Irina Pronina (1953) USSR

Selected 1980

Backup to Svetlana Savitskaya on Soyuz T-7

Retired July 1992; no flights

 

 

 

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April 15th

 

Georgi Beregovoi (1921) USSR

Selected 1964

Soyuz 3, 26 - 30 October 1968 (3d 22h 50m) - first manned flight of the Soyuz following Komarov's crash

Retired February 1982

Died 30 June 1995

 

 

 

Nikolai Porvatkin (1932)

Selected 1967

Underwent basic cosmonaut training but not assigned to a mission

Retired April 1983; no flights

Died 28 September 2009

 

 

 

Marsha Ivins (1951) USA

Selected 1984 (NASA Group 10)

STS-32, 9 - 20 January 1990 (10d 21h 0m) - Retrieved the Long Duration Exposure Facility, in orbit since 1984

STS-46, 31 July - 8 August 1992 (7d 23h 15m) - Deployed EURECA (European Retrieval Carrier) pallet, also the Italian Tethered Satellite; cable jammed

STS-62, 4 - 18 March 1994 (13d 23h 16m) - Carried United States Microgravity Payload 2 (USMP-2) experiments package

STS-81, 12 - 22 January 1997 (10d 4h 55m) - Fifth Shuttle-Mir Mission; crew exchange (Linenger up, Blaha down)

STS-98, 7 - 20 February 2001 (12d 21h 20m) - Delivered the Destiny Module to the ISS

Total flight time 55d 21h 46m

Retired December 2010

 

 

 

John Phillips (1951)

Selected 1996 (NASA Group 16)

STS-100, 19 April - 1 May 2001 (11d 21h 30m) - Delivered the Canadarm manipulator to the ISS

Soyuz TMA-6/ISS Expedition 11, 15 April - 11 October 2005 (179d 0h 23m)

STS-119, 15 - 28 March 2009 (12d 19h 29m) - Delivered the S6 Truss to the ISS; also crew exchange )Wakata up; Magnus down)

Total flight time 203d 17h 22m

Retired 2011

 

 

 

Greg Harbaugh (1956) USA

Selected 1987 (NASA Group 12)

STS-39, 28 April - 6 May 1991 (8d 7h 22m) - DoD mission, the first non-classified. Deployed and retrieved a pallet that observed engine firings from a distance

STS-54, 13 - 19 January 1993 (5d 23h 38m) - Deployed TDRS-F satellite to improve communications between spacecraft and the ground

STS-71, 27 June - 7 July 1995 (9d 19h 22m) - First Shuttle docking with Mir; crew exchange (Solovyov & Budarin up, Strekalov, Dezhurov & Thagard down)

STS-82. 11 - 21 February 1997 (9d 23h 27m) - Second Hubble servicing mission

Total flight time 34d 1h 59m

Retired March 2001

 

 

 

Mikhail Korniyenko (1960) Russia

Selected 1998

Soyuz TMA-18/ISS Expeditions 23/24, 2 April - 25 September 2010 (176d 1h 18m)

Soyuz TMA-16M/ISS Expeditions 43/44/45/46, 27 March 2015 - 2 March 2016 (340d 8h 42m) - the 'Year in Space' (with Scott Kelly) - landed aboard Soyuz TMA-18M

Total flight time 516d 10h 0m

Retired December 2017

 

 

 

Soichi Noguchi (1965) Japan

Selected 1996

STS-114, 26 July - 9 August 2005 (13d 21h 32m)

Soyuz TMA-17/ISS Expeditions 22/23, 20 December 2009 - 2 June 2010 (163d 5h 32m)

Total flight time to date 177d 3h 4m

Still on active flight status

 

 

 

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April 16th

 

David Brown (1956) USA

Selected 1996 (NASA Group 16)

STS-107, 16 January - 1 February 2003 (15d 22h 20m) - US Microgravity Lab 1. Killed when Orbiter Columbia broke up over Texas during re-entry.

Flight time shown is up until Loss of Signal

 

 

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April 17th

 

Sergei Vozovikov (1958) USSR

Selected 1990

Drowned 11 July 1993 during survival training in the Black Sea

 

 

 

Andrei Borisenko (1964) Russia

Selected 2003

Soyuz TMA-21/ISS Expeditions 27/28, 4 April - 16 September 2011 (164d 5h 41m)

Soyuz MS-02/ISS Expeditions 49/50, 19 October 2016 - 10 April 2017 (173d 3h 15m)

Total flight time to date 337d 8h 56m

Still on active flight status

 

 

 

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April 18th

 

Alfred Atwell (1929) USA

Selected 1963 as USAF Military Astronaut

Presumably would have trained to fly either the X-20 Dyna-Soar or the Manned Orbiting Laboratory

Date of retirement unknown

Died 13 April 2013

 

 

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April 20th

 

Gregory Olsen (1945) USA

Selected 2005 (Spaceflight Participant)

Soyuz TMA-7, 1 - 11 October 2005 (9d 21h 15m) - Spacecraft carried ISS Expedition 11; Olsen was fare-paying passenger; landed in TMA-6 with Expedition 10

Retired October 2005

 

 

 

Donald Pettit (1955) USA

Selected 1996 (NASA Group 16)

STS-113/ISS Expedition 6, 24 November 2002 - 4 May 2003 (161d 1h 14m) - was aboard the ISS at the time of Columbia accident; landed aboard Soyuz TMA-1

STS-126, 15 - 30 November 2008 (15d 20h 29m) - Delivered and retrieved the Leonardo Module; partial crew exchange (Magnus up, Charmitoff down)

Soyuz TMA-03M/ISS Expeditions 30/31, 21 December 2011 - 1 July 2012 (192d 18h 58m)

Total flight time to date 369d 16h 41m

Still on active flight status

 

 

 

Sergei Kostenko (1963) Russia

Selected 2005 (Spaceflight Participant)

Backup to Gregory Olsen on Soyuz TMA-7 (see above) - went through basic cosmonaut training but did not fly

Retired October 2005

 

 

 

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April 21st

 

Aleksander Leveykin (1951) USSR

Selected 1978

Soyuz TM-2/Mir Expedition 2, 5 February - 30 July 1987 (174d 3h 25m)

Retired March 1994

 

 

 

Sergei Zalyotin (1962) USSR

Selected 1990

Soyuz TM-30/Mir Expedition 28, 4 April - 16 June 2000 (72d 19h 41m)

Soyuz TMA-1/ISS Taxi Flight 4, 30 October - 10 November 2002 (10d 20h 53m) - landed aboard Soyuz TM-34

Total flight time 83d 16h 34m

Originally retired September 2004; returned to flight status 2011 but retired again for medical reasons May 2014

 

Soyuz TMA-1 was originally to have carried musician Lance Bass of NSYNC as a fare-paying passenger but financial agreement could not be reached and he was dropped

 

 

 

Andrei Babkin (1969) Russia

Selected 2010

On active status; no flights yet though currently assigned to Soyuz MS-12/ISS Expeditions 59/60, scheduled for March - September 2019 

 

 

 

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April 22nd

 

John Llewellyn (1933) USA (Born Cardiff; became US Citizen)

Selected 1967 (NASA Group 6)

Resigned 1968 because he was unable to achieve pilot qualifications

Died 2 July 2013

 

 

 

George Simon (1934) USA

Selected 1978

Backup for STS-61F/Spacelab 2

Retired 1985; no flights

 

 

 

Tamara Zakharova (1952) USSR

Selected 1980

Did basic cosmonaut training but not assigned to a mission

Retired September 1995; no flights

 

Was married to cosmonaut Yuri Sheffer

 

 

 

Daisuke Enomoto (1971) Japan

Selection date uncertain (~ 2005)

Was to be Spaceflight Participant (fare-paying passenger) on Soyuz TMA-9 but grounded for medical reasons a month before the flight

Retired August 2006

 

 

 

Yelena Serova (1976) Russia

Selected 2006

Soyuz TMA-14M/ISS Expeditions 41/42, 25 September 2014 - 12 March 2015 (167d 5h 42m)

Retired September 2016

 

Married to cosmonaut Mark Serov

In the 53 years of crewed spaceflight (to date of her mission) she is only the FOURTH Soviet/Russian woman to fly

 

 

 

 

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April 23rd

 

Virgil "Gus" Grissom (1926) USA

Selected 1959 (NASA Group 1)

Mercury-Redstone 4/Liberty Bell 7, 21 July 1961 (16m) - Suborbital

Gemini 3, 23 March 1965 (4h 52m) - First manned Gemini mission

Total flight time 5h 8m

Killed in spacecraft fire while training for Apollo 1 mission, 27 January 1967

 

 

 

Oleg Moshkin (1964) Russia

Selected 1997

Trained as cosmonaut but retired February 2002 after repeatedly failing his exams

 

 

 

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