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OverviewAI-generated
Frank De Winne is a Belgian astronaut, engineer, and military personnel who was born in Ghent in 1961. He is educated at the Royal Military Academy and holds the rank of brigadier general. His professional career began in 1979, during which he served as a performing artist and participated in the NATO bombing of Yugoslavia. He is recognized in the Astronauts collection.
De Winne was a member of the crew of Soyuz TMA-1, Expedition 20, Expedition 21, and Soyuz TMA-15. He spent 286174 units of time in space. His awards include the Medal "For Merit in Space Exploration", the Order of Friendship, the NASA Distinguished Public Service Medal, and the NASA Space Flight Medal. He also holds the noble title of burgrave.
Synthesized by Vinony from 18 facts across 2 sources: Wikidata, Vinony collections. Generated from structured data (not the Wikipedia text) and checked against those facts — may still contain errors.
Key facts
- Born
- ( 1961-04-25 ) 25 April 1961 (age 65) , Ghent , Belgium
- Occupation
- Test pilot
- Status
- Retired
- Rank
- Brigadier General , Belgian Air Force
- Time in space
- 198 days, 17 hours, 34 minutes
- Selection
- 1998 ESA Group
- Missions
- Soyuz TMA-1 / TM-34 , Soyuz TMA-15 ( Expedition 20 / 21 )
via Wikipedia infobox
Wikidata facts
- Instance of
- human
- Given name
- Frank
- Gender
- male
- Citizenship
- Belgium
- Place of birth
- Ghent
- Occupation
- aircraft pilot
- Educated at
- Royal Military Academy
- Noble title
- burgrave
- Conflict
- NATO bombing of Yugoslavia
- Military rank
- brigadier general
- Image
- Frank De Winne (2013).jpg
Show 9 more facts
- Commons category
- Frank De Winne
- date of birth
- 1961-04-25
- time in space
- 286174
- start of work period
- 1979-00-00
- member of the crew of
- Soyuz TMA-1
- P12674
- Hsinking
- name in native language
- Frank De Winne
- member of
- Expedition 21
- P450
- Expedition 21
via Wikidata · CC0
~6 min read
Encyclopedic overview
Frank De Winne (born 25 April 1961, in Ledeberg, Belgium) is a Belgian Air Component officer and an ESA astronaut. He is Belgium's second person in space (after Dirk Frimout). He was the first ESA astronaut to command a space mission when he served as commander of ISS Expedition 21. He serves currently as Head of the European Astronaut Centre of the European Space Agency in Cologne/Germany (Köln).
Education
Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “Frank De Winne” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.