Thomas Reiter: ESA ASTRONAUT
BIOGRAPHICAL DATA

NAME: Thomas Reiter

BIRTHPLACE AND DATE: Frankfurt/Main, Germany, 23 May 1958.

PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION: Height: 182 cm, weight: 76 kg, blue eyes.

EDUCATION: Graduated from Goethe High School in Neu-Isenburg in June 1977. In December 1982, he graduated from the armed forces University in Neubiberg. He has a Masters Degree in Aerospace Technology. In December 1992, He graduated from the Empire Test Pilots School (ETPS) in Boscombe Down, England.

MARITAL STATUS: Married to Consuela Kostermann.

CHILDREN: Daniel, born 12 February 1992.

RECREATIONAL INTERESTS: Fencing , badminton, cooking, playing guitar.

EXPERIENCE: After completion of military jet training at Sheppard Air Base, Texas, Thomas Reiter flew the Alpha-Jet in a combat aircraft squadron based in Oldenburg, Germany. During that time, he was involved in the development of computerised mission planning stations and became a flight-operations officer and deputy squadron commander. In 1990, he completed Class 2 test-pilot training at the German flight test centre in Manching. In 1991, he completed conversion training on the tornado and was involved in different light test projects. In 1992 Reiter attended the class 1 test-pilot training at ETPS, Boscombe Down, England. He has logged 1700 flight hours in more than 15 different types of military combat jet aircraft.

Thomas Reiter has also been involved in the European Space Agency's studies relating Hermes vehicle and to various equipment for the Columbus module of the International space station.

In May 1992, Thomas Reiter was selected to join the Astronaut Corps of the European Space Agency (ESA), based at the European Astronauts Centre (EAC) in Cologne, Germany. From January to July 1993, he performed Basic Training at EAC.

ON 7 May 1993, Thomas Reiter and his Swedish colleague, Christer Fuglesang, were selected for the EUROMIR 95 mission. In August 1993, the two astronauts began training at TsPK, the Cosmonauts training Centre, in Star City near Moscow, in preparation for their on-board-engineer tasks, extra vehicular activities ('spacewalks') and the operation of the Soyuz transportation system. The training on the EUROMIR 95 experiments was organised and mainly carried out at the European Astronauts Centre.

On 17 March 1995, Reiter was selected as a member of Crew 1, the flight crew, for the EUROMIR 95 mission, along with Russian cosmonauts Yuri Gidzenko and Sergei Avdeev.

The EUROMIR mission began on 3 September 1995. During his 179-day stay in space, Reiter carried out some 40 European scientific experiments and, as on-board engineer, took part in the maintenance of the Russian orbital station Mir. He also performed two spacewalks (EVAs), one to install cassettes for the European Space Exposure Facility (ESEF) experiments and the second one, to retrieve them. The mission was completed on 29 February 21996, when the crew landed successfully in Kazakhstan.

CURRENT ASSIGNMENT: Thomas Reiter is currently performing post-flight activities relating to the EUROMIR 95 mission, including mission debriefings, medical examinations, collection of baseline data for comparison with pre-flight and in-flight data, rehabilitation, and PR activities.

May 1996

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If you want to know what's involved in astronaut training see Resource Sheet 3