Jean-Loup Chrétien
Jean-Loup Chrétien | |
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Jean-Loup Jacques Marie Chrétien (born 20 August 1938) is a French retired Général de Brigade (brigadier general) in the Armée de l'Air (French air force), and a former CNES spationaut. He flew on two Franco-Soviet space missions and a NASA Space Shuttle mission. Chrétien was the first Frenchman and the first western European in space.
Personal life
Chrétien was born in the town of La Rochelle, France. He was married to and then divorced from Amy Kristine Jensen of New Canaan, Connecticut, and had five children. His father, Jacques, was a Navy sailor, and his mother, the former Marie-Blanche Coudurier, was a housewife. Chrétien is fluent in French, English and Russian.
Education
Chrétien was educated at l'École communale à Ploujean, the Collège Saint-Charles à Saint-Brieuc, and the Lycée de Morlaix. He entered the École de l'Air (the French Air Force Academy) at Salon-de-Provence and graduated in 1961, receiving a master's degree in aeronautical engineering.
Organizations
- Member of the board of the "Académie de l'air et de l'espace", and the Musée de l'air et de l'espace.
- Former counselor for Space Activities (Manned) to the President of Dassault Aviation.
- Member of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, the International Academy of Astronautics, and the Association of Space Explorers.
- Member of the Board of BRIT AIR, an airline in his hometown, Morlaix.
- Honorary fellow of the Society of Experimental Test Pilots.[1]
Awards and honors
- Title of Hero of the Soviet Union (on 2 July 1982)[2]
- Order of Lenin
- Order of the Red Banner of Labour
- Commandeur de la Légion d'Honneur (Commander of the Order of the Legion of Honour)
- Chevalier de l'Ordre National du Mérite (Knight of the National Order of Merit)
- Titulaire de la Médaille de l'Aéronautique (Holder of the Aeronautics Medal)
- Honorary citizenship of Arkalyk, Kazakhstan
Career
Chrétien received his fighter pilot/pilot-engineer wings in 1962, after one year of training on
In April 1979, the Soviet Union offered France the opportunity to fly a cosmonaut on board a joint Soviet-French space flight, along the same lines as the agreement to fly non-Soviet cosmonauts from member countries of the Interkosmos program. The offer was accepted, and France began a spationaut selection process in September 1979. Chrétien was one of two finalists named on 12 June 1980. He started training at the Yuri Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center in September 1980. The following year, he was named as the research cosmonaut for the prime crew of the Soyuz T-6 mission.
Soyuz T-6 was launched on 24 June 1982, and Chrétien,
Chrétien was selected as the back-up crew member for STS-51-G (Patrick Baudry, another CNES astronaut, flew on that mission). During 1984–1985, he participated in mission training at the Johnson Space Center.
Chrétien made his second space flight as a research cosmonaut on board
During 1990–1993, Chrétien participated in
In 1994, he was selected as part of NASA Astronaut Group 15 to officially become an International Mission Specialist with NASA.
Chrétien attended ASCAN Training at the Johnson Space Center during 1995. He was initially assigned to work on technical issues for the Operations Planning Branch of the Astronaut Office. He served on the crew of STS-86 Atlantis (25 September to 6 October 1997) the seventh mission to rendezvous and dock with the Russian Space Station Mir. Highlights included the delivery of a Mir attitude control computer, the exchange of U.S. crew members Mike Foale and David Wolf, a spacewalk by Scott E. Parazynski and Vladimir Titov to retrieve four experiments first deployed on Mir during the STS-76 docking mission, the transfer to Mir of 4,700 kg (10,400 lb) of science and logistics, and the return of experiment hardware and results to Earth. Mission duration was 10 days, 19 hours, and 21 minutes.
In September 2000, while visiting a
Books
- Jean-Loup Chrétien, Patrick Baudry and Bernard Chabbert, Spatiale premier: the first French in space, Paris, Plon, 1982, 306 p. ISBN 978-2-259-00927-0
- Jean-Loup Chrétien, Sonata au clair de terre: Itinerary of a Frenchman in space, Paris, Denoël, coll. "Mediations", 1993, 232 p. ISBN 2-207-24153-X
- Jean-Loup Chrétien, Mission Mir: Logbook, Paris, Michel Lafon, coll. "Documents", 1998, ISBN 978-2-84098-374-3
- Jean-Loup Chrétien, Catherine Alric, Dreams of stars, Paris, Alphée, coll. "Documents", 2009, 236 p. BnF 414559361
- Jean-Loup Chrétien, Roman Gurbanov, Programming with Python in Minecraft, Moscow, Litres, 2020, 148 p. ISBN 978-5-532-99551-2
- Jean-Loup Chrétien, Roman Gurbanov, Python from Scratch. Soyuz-T6 Space Expedition: 41st anniversary edition, Litres, 2023, 100 p. ISBN 979-8-22385-304-6
References
- ^ "Honorary Fellows of SETP". The Society of Experimental Test Pilots. Retrieved 21 July 2022.
- ^ (in Russian) Biography at the website on Heroes of the Soviet Union and Russia
- ^ Accident grounded astronaut
External links
- CNES Archived 4 April 2005 at the Wayback Machine
- NASA Biography
- Les Travailleurs de l'Espace
- thespaceagency.org
- space-explorers.org
- Spacefacts biography of Jean-Loup Chrétien
- Tietronix Software Inc.
- Python from Scratch. Soyuz-T6 Space Expedition: 41st anniversary edition.
- Jean-Loup Chrétien on Instagram
- Jean-Loup Chrétien on Facebook