Jean-Loup Jacques Marie Chrétien (born 20 August 1938) is a French retired ''Général de Brigade'' (brigadier general) in the ''

Armée de l'Air The French Air and Space Force (, , ) is the air force, air and space force of the French Armed Forces. Formed in 1909 as the ("Aeronautical Service"), a service arm of the French Army, it became an independent military branch in 1934 as the Fr ...

'' (French air force), and a former

CNES CNES () is the French national space agency. Headquartered in central Paris, the agency is overseen by the ministries of the Armed Forces, Economy and Finance and Higher Education, Research and Innovation. It operates from the Toulouse Spac ...

spationaut. He flew on two Franco-Soviet space missions and a

NASA The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA ) is an independent agencies of the United States government, independent agency of the federal government of the United States, US federal government responsible for the United States ...

Space Shuttle The Space Shuttle is a retired, partially reusable launch system, reusable low Earth orbital spacecraft system operated from 1981 to 2011 by the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) as part of the Space Shuttle program. ...

mission. Chrétien was the first Frenchman and the first western European in space.

Personal life

Chrétien was born in the town of

La Rochelle La Rochelle (, , ; Poitevin-Saintongeais: ''La Rochéle'') is a city on the west coast of France and a seaport on the Bay of Biscay, a part of the Atlantic Ocean. It is the capital of the Charente-Maritime Departments of France, department. Wi ...

, France. He was married to and then divorced from Amy Kristine Jensen of

New Canaan, Connecticut New Canaan () is a town in Fairfield County, Connecticut, United States. The population was 20,622 according to the 2020 census. The town is part of the Western Connecticut Planning Region. About an hour from New York City by train, the town ...

, 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 the École communale in Ploujean, the Collège Saint-Charles in

Saint-Brieuc Saint-Brieuc (, Breton language, Breton: ''Sant-Brieg'' , Gallo language, Gallo: ''Saent-Berioec'') is a city in the Côtes-d'Armor Departments of France, department in Brittany (administrative region), Brittany in northwestern France. History ...

, and the Lycée de

Morlaix Morlaix (; , ) is a commune in the Finistère department of Brittany in northwestern France. It is a sub-prefecture of the department. History The Battle of Morlaix, part of the Hundred Years' War, was fought near the town on 30 Septembe ...

. He entered the

École de l'Air École or Ecole may refer to: * an elementary school in the French educational stages normally followed by secondary education establishments (collège and lycée) * École (river), a tributary of the Seine flowing in région Île-de-France * Éco ...

(the French Air Force Academy) at

Salon-de-Provence Salon-de-Provence (, ; or , ), commonly known as Salon, is a commune located about northwest of Marseille in the Bouches-du-Rhône department (Metropolis of Aix-Marseille Provence), region of Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur, Southern France. It ...

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 An academy (Attic Greek: Ἀκαδήμεια; Koine Greek Ἀκαδημία) is an institution of tertiary education. The name traces back to Plato's school of philosophy, founded approximately 386 BC at Akademia, a sanctuary of Athena, the g ...

''", and the

Musée de l'air et de l'espace The Musée de l'air et de l'espace (, ) is a French aerospace museum, located at the south-eastern edge of Paris–Le Bourget Airport, north of Paris, and in the Communes of France, commune of Le Bourget. It was inaugurated in 1919 after a propo ...

. *Former counselor for Space Activities (Manned) to the President of

Dassault Aviation Dassault Aviation SA () is a French Aerospace manufacturer, manufacturer of military aircraft and business jets. It was founded in 1929 by Marcel Dassault, Marcel Bloch as Société des Avions Marcel Bloch (Marcel Bloch Aircraft Company). After ...

. *Member of the

American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics The American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA) is a professional society for the field of aerospace engineering Aerospace engineering is the primary field of engineering concerned with the development of aircraft and spacecra ...

, the

International Academy of Astronautics The International Academy of Astronautics (IAA) is a Paris-based non-government association for the field of astronautics. It was founded in Stockholm, Sweden) on August 16, 1960, by Dr. Theodore von Kármán. It was recognised by the United Nation ...

, and the

Association of Space Explorers Association may refer to: *Club (organization), an association of two or more people united by a common interest or goal *Trade association, an organization founded and funded by businesses that operate in a specific industry *Voluntary associatio ...

. *Member of the Board of

BRIT AIR Brit Air (), short for Brittany Air International, was a regional airline based at Morlaix – Ploujean Airport in Ploujean, Morlaix, Brittany, France, operating scheduled services as an Air France franchise from Lyon–Saint Exupéry Airpor ...

, an airline in his hometown,

. *Honorary

fellow A fellow is a title and form of address for distinguished, learned, or skilled individuals in academia, medicine, research, and industry. The exact meaning of the term differs in each field. In learned society, learned or professional society, p ...

of the Society of Experimental Test Pilots.

Awards and honors

* Title of

Hero of the Soviet Union The title Hero of the Soviet Union () was the highest distinction in the Soviet Union, awarded together with the Order of Lenin personally or collectively for heroic feats in service to the Soviet state and society. The title was awarded both ...

(on 2 July 1982) *

Order of Lenin The Order of Lenin (, ) was an award named after Vladimir Lenin, the leader of the October Revolution. It was established by the Central Executive Committee on 6 April 1930. The order was the highest civilian decoration bestowed by the Soviet ...

Order of the Red Banner of Labour The Order of the Red Banner of Labour () was an order of the Soviet Union established to honour great deeds and services to the Soviet state and society in the fields of production, science, culture, literature, the arts, education, sports ...

* '' Commandeur de la Légion d'Honneur'' (Commander of the Order of the

Legion of Honour The National Order of the Legion of Honour ( ), formerly the Imperial Order of the Legion of Honour (), is the highest and most prestigious French national order of merit, both military and Civil society, civil. Currently consisting of five cl ...

) * '' 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 Honorary citizenship is a status bestowed by a city or other government on a foreign or native individual whom it considers to be especially admirable or otherwise worthy of the distinction. The honor usually is symbolic and does not confer an ...

of Arkalyk,

Kazakhstan Kazakhstan, officially the Republic of Kazakhstan, is a landlocked country primarily in Central Asia, with a European Kazakhstan, small portion in Eastern Europe. It borders Russia to the Kazakhstan–Russia border, north and west, China to th ...

Career

Chrétien received his fighter pilot/pilot-engineer wings in 1962, after one year of training on Mystère IVs. He was promoted to lieutenant, and joined the 5th Fighter Wing in Orange, in the southeast of France, where he served for seven years as a fighter pilot in an operational squadron flying Super-Mystere B2 and then Mirage III interceptors. In 1970, he was assigned to the French test pilots school, EPNER (

École du personnel navigant d'essais et de réception EPNER (''École du Personnel Navigant d’Essais et de Réception'') is the French test pilot school, based on the Istres Air Base, Istres Le Tube Airbase, France. One of the five main test pilot schools in the western hemisphere, EPNER maintains c ...

), then served as a test pilot at the Istres-Le Tubé Air Base for seven years. During that time he was responsible for supervising the flight test program for the Mirage F-1 fighter. In 1977–1978, he was appointed deputy commander of the South Air Defence Division in

Aix-en-Provence Aix-en-Provence, or simply Aix, is a List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, city and Communes of France, commune in southern France, about north of Marseille. A former capital of Provence, it is the Subprefectures in France, s ...

, and he served in this position until his selection as a

cosmonaut An astronaut (from the Ancient Greek (), meaning 'star', and (), meaning 'sailor') is a person trained, equipped, and deployed by a List of human spaceflight programs, human spaceflight program to serve as a commander or crew member of a spa ...

in June 1980. Chrétien remained a French Air Force officer but was placed on detachment to

for his space flight activities ensuring his availability for future flights with the

(NASA),

Mir ''Mir'' (, ; ) was a space station operated in low Earth orbit from 1986 to 2001, first by the Soviet Union and later by the Russia, Russian Federation. ''Mir'' was the first modular space station and was assembled in orbit from 1986 to ...

(

Soviet Union The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...

) or

Spacelab Spacelab was a reusable laboratory developed by European Space Agency (ESA) and used on certain spaceflights flown by the Space Shuttle. The laboratory comprised multiple components, including a pressurized module, an unpressurized carrier, ...

( ESA). He has accumulated over 8,000 hours of flying time in various aircraft, including Tupolev-154,

MiG-25 The Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-25 (; NATO reporting name: Foxbat) is a supersonic interceptor and reconnaissance aircraft that is among the fastest military aircraft to enter service. Designed by the Soviet Union's Mikoyan-Gurevich bureau, it is a ...

Sukhoi Su-26 The Sukhoi Su-26 is a single-seater list of aerobatic aircraft, aerobatic aircraft from the former Soviet Union, powered by a single radial reciprocating engine. The Su-26 has mid-mounted straight wings and fixed landing gear, the main gear mou ...

, and

Sukhoi Su-27 The Sukhoi Su-27 (; NATO reporting name: Flanker) is a Soviet Union, Soviet-origin twinjet, twin-engine supersonic Supermaneuverability, supermaneuverable fighter aircraft designed by Sukhoi. It was intended as a direct competitor for the lar ...

. A veteran of three space flights, Chrétien was the tenth

Interkosmos Interkosmos () was a Soviet space program, designed to help the Soviet Union's allies with Human spaceflight, crewed and Uncrewed spacecraft, uncrewed space missions. The program was formed in April 1967 in Moscow. All members of the program fr ...

cosmonaut, and has spent a total of 43 days, 11 hours, 18 minutes, 42 seconds in space, including an

extra-vehicular activity Extravehicular activity (EVA) is any activity done by an astronaut in outer space outside a spacecraft. In the absence of a breathable Earthlike atmosphere, the astronaut is completely reliant on a space suit for environmental support. EVA i ...

(EVA) of 5 hours, 57 minutes. 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 The Yuri A. Gagarin State Scientific Research-and-Testing Cosmonaut Training Center (GCTC; Russian: Центр подготовки космонавтов имени Ю. А. Гагарина) is a Russian training facility responsible for tra ...

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, Vladimir Dzhanibekov and

Aleksandr Ivanchenkov Aleksandr Sergeyevich Ivanchenkov (; born 28 September 1940) is a retired Soviet cosmonaut who flew as Flight Engineer on Soyuz 29 and Soyuz T-6, he spent 147 days, 12 hours and 37 minutes in space. Ivanchenkov first flew on Soyuz 29 in 1978 ...

linked up with

Salyut 7 Salyut 7 (), also known as DOS-6 (Durable Orbital Station 6) was a space station in low Earth orbit from April 1982 to February 1991. It was first crewed in May 1982 with two crew via Soyuz T-5, and last visited in June 1986, by Soyuz T-15. Va ...

and joined the crew of Anatoli Berezovoy and Valentin Lebedev already on board. They spent nearly seven days carrying out a program of joint Soviet-French experiments, including a series of French echography cardiovascular monitoring system experiments, before returning to Earth after a flight lasting 7 days, 21 hours, 50 minutes, and 42 seconds. This flight made him the first Western non-American to go to space, as well as the first Western European. Following the mission he was appointed chief of the CNES Astronaut Office. Chrétien was selected as the back-up crew member for STS-51-G (

Patrick Baudry Patrick Pierre Roger Baudry (born March 6, 1946, in French Cameroon, Cameroon) is a retired lieutenant colonel in the French Air Force and a former CNES astronaut. In 1985, he became the second French citizen in space, after Jean-Loup Chrétien, ...

, another CNES astronaut, flew on that mission). During 1984–1985, he participated in mission training at the

Johnson Space Center The Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center (JSC) is NASA's center for human spaceflight in Houston, Texas (originally named the Manned Spacecraft Center), where human spaceflight training, research, and flight controller, flight control are conducted. ...

. Chrétien made his second space flight as a research cosmonaut on board Soyuz TM-7, which launched on 26 November 1988. Together with Alexander Alexandrovich Volkov and

Sergei Krikalev Sergei Konstantinovich Krikalev (, also transliterated as Sergei Krikalyov; born 27 August 1958) is a Russian mechanical engineer and former cosmonaut and head of the Yuri Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center. As a prominent rocket scientist, he ...

, he linked up with Mir and joined the crew of Vladimir Titov, Musa Manarov and Valeriy Polyakov already on board. They spent 22 days carrying out a program of joint Soviet-French experiments, including a 5-hour and 57-minute EVA by Volkov and Chrétien during which the two men installed the French ERA experimental deployable structure and a panel of material samples. In making the EVA, he became the first non-American and non-Soviet to walk in space. In addition, he was the first non-Soviet cosmonaut to make a second space flight aboard a Soviet spacecraft. The mission lasted 24 days, 18 hours, and 7 minutes. During 1990–1993, Chrétien participated in Buran spacecraft pilot training at the Moscow Joukovski Institute. 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 Spacecraft attitude control is the process of controlling the orientation of a spacecraft (vehicle or satellite) with respect to an inertial frame of reference or another entity such as the celestial sphere, certain fields, and nearby objects, ...

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 STS-76 was NASA's 76th Space Shuttle mission, and the 16th mission for Space Shuttle Atlantis, ''Atlantis''. STS-76 launched on 22 March 1996 at 08:13:04 Coordinated Universal Time, UTC from Kennedy Space Center, Kennedy Space Center Launch ...

docking mission, the transfer to Mir of of science and logistics, and the return of experiment hardware and results to

Earth Earth is the third planet from the Sun and the only astronomical object known to Planetary habitability, harbor life. This is enabled by Earth being an ocean world, the only one in the Solar System sustaining liquid surface water. Almost all ...

. Mission duration was 10 days, 19 hours, and 21 minutes. In September 2000, while visiting a

Home Depot The Home Depot, Inc., often referred to as Home Depot, is an American multinational corporation, multinational home improvement retail corporation that sells tools, construction products, appliances, and services, including fuel and transportat ...

store in

Webster, Texas Webster is a city in the U.S. state of Texas located in Harris County, within the Houston–The Woodlands–Sugar Land metropolitan area. Its population was 12,499 at the 2020 U.S. census. History The community was founded in 1879 by James ...

, he was hit by a drill press that fell from a shelf more than above him. The injuries to his neck, head, and shoulders were severe enough that a NASA flight surgeon determined that Chrétien could no longer fly. He was forced to retire from the space program in 2001. He filed a US$15 million lawsuit against Home Depot several months after the accident. The company settled the suit in 2002. The terms of the settlement are protected by a confidentiality agreement.Accident grounded astronaut
/ref> Chrétien is currently working for Tietronix Software as the vice president of research and development in

Houston Houston ( ) is the List of cities in Texas by population, most populous city in the U.S. state of Texas and in the Southern United States. Located in Southeast Texas near Galveston Bay and the Gulf of Mexico, it is the county seat, seat of ...

, Texas.

Books

* Jean-Loup Chrétien, Patrick Baudry and Bernard Chabbert, ''Spatiale premier: the first French in space'', Paris, Plon, 1982, 306 p. * Jean-Loup Chrétien, ''Sonata au clair de terre: Itinerary of a Frenchman in space'', Paris, Denoël, coll. "Mediations", 1993, 232 p. * Jean-Loup Chrétien, ''Mission Mir: Logbook'', Paris, Michel Lafon, coll. "Documents", 1998, * Jean-Loup Chrétien, Catherine Alric, ''Dreams of stars'', Paris, Alphée, coll. "Documents", 2009, 236 p. * Jean-Loup Chrétien, Roman Gurbanov, ''Programming with Python in Minecraft'', Moscow, Litres, 2020, 148 p. * Jean-Loup Chrétien, Roman Gurbanov, ''Python from Scratch. Soyuz-T6 Space Expedition: 41st anniversary edition'', Litres, 2023, 100 p.

References

External links

CNES

Tietronix Software Inc.

Python from Scratch. Soyuz-T6 Space Expedition: 41st anniversary edition.
* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Chretien, Jean-Loup 1938 births Living people People from La Rochelle École de l'air alumni Foreign Heroes of the Soviet Union Commanders of the Legion of Honour Knights of the Ordre national du Mérite Recipients of the Aeronautical Medal Recipients of the Order of Lenin Recipients of the Order of the Red Banner of Labour French spationauts Mir crew members Salyut program cosmonauts Space Shuttle program astronauts Spacewalkers CNES personnel