Jean-Pierre Haigneré (born 19 May 1948) is a

French Air Force 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 ...

officer 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. Jean-Pierre Haigneré was born in

Paris Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, largest city of France. With an estimated population of 2,048,472 residents in January 2025 in an area of more than , Paris is the List of ci ...

, France, and joined the French Air Force, where he trained as a test pilot. He flew on two missions to the

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 ...

space station in 1993 and 1999. The Mir Perseus (Mir EO-27) long-duration mission (186 days) in 1999 also included an EVA. In addition to his duties at the

European Space Agency The European Space Agency (ESA) is a 23-member International organization, international organization devoted to space exploration. With its headquarters in Paris and a staff of around 2,547 people globally as of 2023, ESA was founded in 1975 ...

, Jean-Pierre Haigneré is also involved in a European

space tourism Space tourism is human space travel for recreational purposes. There are several different types of space tourism, including orbital, suborbital and lunar space tourism. Tourists are motivated by the possibility of viewing Earth from space, ...

initiative, the '' Astronaute Club Européen'' (ACE), which he co-founded with Alain Dupas and Laurent Gathier. He is credited with taking the first picture of the shadow of a

Solar eclipse A solar eclipse occurs when the Moon passes between Earth and the Sun, thereby obscuring the view of the Sun from a small part of Earth, totally or partially. Such an alignment occurs approximately every six months, during the eclipse season i ...

from space. He took this during the Mir Perseus (Mir EO-27) mission.

Family

He is married to former French astronaut

Claudie Haigneré Claudie (André-Deshays) Haigneré (; born 13 May 1957) is a French doctor, politician and former astronaut. She was the Women in space, first female astronaut of the CNES, French space agency CNES and the ESA, European Space Agency (ESA) to go ...

. The

asteroid An asteroid is a minor planet—an object larger than a meteoroid that is neither a planet nor an identified comet—that orbits within the Solar System#Inner Solar System, inner Solar System or is co-orbital with Jupiter (Trojan asteroids). As ...

135268 Haigneré is named in their combined honour.

References

External links

CNES Biography

Website of ''Astronaute Club Européen''
1948 births Living people French spationauts Knights of the Ordre national du Mérite École de l'air alumni French Air and Space Force personnel Spacewalkers Mir crew members Recipients of the Order of Courage (Russia) CNES personnel {{Astronaut-stub