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PEDRO DUQUE
ESA ASTRONAUT
PERSONAL DATA: Born 14 March 1963 in Madrid, Spain. He is married and has 3 children. Enjoys diving, swimming and cycling.
EDUCATION: Graduated with a degree in Aeronautical Engineering from the Escuela Técnica Superior de Ingenieros Aeronáuticos, Universidad Politécnica, Madrid in 1986.
ORGANIZATIONS: Spanish Academy of Engineering.
SPECIAL HONORS: Russian "Order of Friendship" awarded by President Boris Yeltsin of the Russian Federation in March 1995. "Great Cross of Aeronautical Merit" awarded by the King of Spain in February 1999. "Principe de Asturias" prize for International Cooperation shared with another three astronauts.
EXPERIENCE: Duque joined GMV (Grupo Mecánica del Vuelo) in 1986 and moved to ESA's European Space Operations Center (ESOC) in Darmstadt, Germany, to give support to the Precise Orbit Determination Group. Until 1992, he worked on the development of models for orbit determination, algorithms and implementation of orbit computation software. He was also part of the Flight Control Team for ESA's ERS-1 satellite and EURECA, the European Retrievable Carrier.
Duque was selected to join the ESA Astronaut Corps based at the European Astronaut Centre (EAC) in Cologne, Germany, in May 1992. He completed the Introductory and Basic Training Programs at EAC and a four-week training program at TsPK (the Russian Cosmonaut Training Center) in Star City, Russia.
In August 1993, Duque returned to TsPK to train for the joint ESA-Russian Euromir 94 mission. During Euromir 94, which took place from 3 October to 4 November 1994, he was the prime Crew Interface Coordinator (CIC) in the Russian Mission Control Center (TsUP) in Moscow. He served as coordinator between the crew onboard Mir and the European scientists.
In May 1995, NASA selected Duque as an Alternate Payload Specialist for the Space Shuttle Life and Microgravity Spacelab (LMS) mission (STS-78) flown in June-July 1996. During this 17-day mission, Duque was one of the two CIC’s, acting as the interface between researchers on ground and the crew onboard the shuttle Columbia for all experiment-related issues. ESA had five major facilities on the flight and was responsible for more than half of the experiments performed.
In August 1996, Duque entered the Mission Specialist Class at the NASA Johnson Space Center in Houston. This training led to his certification as Mission Specialist in April 1998, qualifying him for assignments on board the Space Shuttle.
In 1999, Duque was assigned to ESA/ESTEC, Noordwijk, The Netherlands, providing Support to the Module Projects Division within the Directorate of Manned Spaceflight and Microgravity.
He worked with the Columbus and Cupola Projects as integrated crew support until 2002. Among the tasks assigned were: review of design in terms of operability and maintainability; ergonomic evaluation of the internal and external features of the module; evaluation of displays and procedures and participation in safety reviews.
In April 2001, Pedro Duque was assigned to the first ISS advanced training class to prepare for one of the first European long-term flights aboard the ISS.
SPACE FLIGHT EXPERIENCE: Pedro Duque has flown two missions. He was a Mission Specialist on STS-95 aboard the Space Shuttle Discovery (29 October to 7 November 1998). This 9-day mission was dedicated to research in weightlessness and the study of the Sun. Duque was responsible, among others, for the five ESA scientific facilities on board and for the extensive computer system and configurations used on the Shuttle From Oct 20-27, 2003, Duque lived and worked aboard the International Space Station carrying out an extrensive program of scientific, technological and educational experiments as part of the Cervantes mission. He launched Oct 18, 2003 from Baikonur Cosmodrome, Kazakhstan aboard Soyuz TMA-3 with the Expedition-8 crew, and returned to earth aboard Soyuz TMA-2 with the Expedition-7 crew on October 27,2003.
OCTOBER 2003
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