Franz Viehboeck
| Franz Viehboeck | |
|---|---|
| Country: | Austria |
| selected on | October 6, 1989 |
| Calls: | 1 space flight |
| Begin: | October 2, 1991 |
| Landing: | October 10, 1991 |
| Time in space: | 7d 22h 12min |
| retired on | October 1991 |
| Space flights | |
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Franz Artur Viehböck (born August 24, 1960 in Vienna ) is an Austrian electrical engineer and former Austrian astronaut . As the first and so far only Austrian in space , he was nicknamed "Austronaut" by the Austrian media.
Life
In 1978 he graduated from the Bundesgymnasium / Bundesrealgymnasium Keimgasse in Mödling. He then studied electrical engineering at the Technical University in Vienna and graduated. He was an active water polo player, in the 1980s, among others, at the Vienna Swimming Union . In 1988 he was an assistant at the Vienna University of Technology when the tender for an Austrian cosmonaut ran. He and the doctor Clemens Lothaller were selected from numerous applicants for the Soviet-Austrian space project Austromir 91 , together they completed the two-year training in the star city near Moscow. The Soviet space agency decided on him only the day before the start, so that on October 2, 1991 Viehböck took off together with the Soviet cosmonaut Alexander Wolkow and the first Kazakh cosmonaut Toqtar Äubäkirow with Soyuz TM-13 from the Baikonur spaceport .
During his stay in the Mir space station , he carried out 15 scientific experiments in the fields of space medicine, physics and space technology together with the cosmonauts Anatolyj Arzebarskyj and Sergei Krikaljow . Viehböck returned with Soyuz TM-12 after seven days and 22 hours and landed in Kazakhstan on October 10 .
On behalf of the Austrian government, Viehböck held lectures and information events about the mission over the next two years. He then worked for Rockwell International in the USA , and after Rockwell's takeover by Boeing, he was appointed Director for International Business Development in Vienna . He later became the technology officer for the state of Lower Austria .
Since 2004 he has held a leading position (Chief Technology Officer for Technology & Personnel Development) at Berndorf AG in Berndorf . In April 2015 Viehböck was elected to the AMAG Supervisory Board in Ranshofen.
Viehböck is married, his daughter was born during his stay in space, and he has three sons.
Awards
- Grand Decoration of Honor in Gold for Services to the Republic of Austria , presented by Austrian President Kurt Waldheim (1991)
Trivia
In the space novel Alles never works (2005) by the Austrian author Martin Amanshauser , who is set in 2020, is a character named Viehböck, ex-astronaut and Austrian flight legend, a protagonist. The fictional character Viehböck is already 60 years old at the time of the plot and, thanks to her experience with Soviet technology, is given another opportunity to fly into space.
See also
- Manned space travel
- List of manned space flights
- List of spacemen
- List of manned missions to the Mir space station
- List of Soyuz missions
- Soyuz (spaceship)
- Soviet space travel
literature
- Franz Viehböck, Clemens Lothaller: Austromir '91. The Austrian step into the space age. Edition Tau, Bad Sauerbrunn 1991, ISBN 3-900977-27-5
Web links
- Literature by and about Franz Viehböck in the catalog of the German National Library
- Personal homepage
- Project AUSTROMIR-91
- spacefacts.de: biography
- Entry on Franz Viehböck in the Austria Forum (in the AEIOU Austria Lexicon )
Individual evidence
- ↑ WBV-Graz: Legenden , accessed on September 13, 2019.
- ↑ http://noe.orf.at/tv/stories/2770051/ Viehböck: “Would do it again”, orf.at, April 23, 2016, accessed April 24, 2016.
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Viehböck, Franz |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Viehböck, Franz Artur (full name) |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Austrian electrical engineer and first Austrian space traveler |
| DATE OF BIRTH | August 24, 1960 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Vienna |