Bjarni Tryggvason, one of the first six Canadian planes to fly on NASA’s spacecraft, died in 76.
The news of Tryggvason’s death (opens on new page) on Monday (April 5) first posted online by former NASA pilot Leland Melvin, who trained with Tryggvason as a member of the U.S. space agency’s 1998 group of planetary astronaut candidates .
“Rest in peace Penguin classmate. It’s an honor to learn and work with you,” Melvin wrote on Instagram (opens on new page) on Wednesday (April 6). “Aloha aloha family. Aloha nui.”
The Canadian Space Agency (CSA) confirmed Tryggvason was dead with a stroke Words posted on Twitter (opens on new page).
“With great sadness and a heavy heart we learned that CSA astronaut Bjarni Tryggvason has passed away,” the agency wrote. “He used the highest standards in everything he did.”
Space Agency of Canada: Facts and information
Tryggvason had only flown once before training with Melvin. Nominated by the National Research Council of Canada as one of the country’s first six astronauts in 1983, Tryggvason was hired as a paid engineer with NASA’s STS-85 team in August 1997.
The 12-day mission is to install and return a free-flying satellite (CRISTA-SPAS-2) that studies changes in Earth’s atmosphere, and to test something before the Remote manipulator system, or robotic arm, currently outside of Japan. Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) Kibo module on the International Space Station.
Tryggvason’s main work on the Discovery aircraft was the design and evaluation of the Microgravity Vibration Isolation Mount (MIM), a small instrument built in Canada designed to separate cargo and cargo. test from disturbances caused by thruster firings or industrial operation. Improving the same material that was installed and used successfully at the old Russian airfield Mir, MIM used magnetic devices to levitate and separate the individual experiments. It was later adapted for use on the International Space Station.
On the seventh day of the flight, Mission Control greeted Tryggvason and five of his colleagues with the song “Good Vibrations” by The Beach Boys as a celebration of Tryggvason’s work at MIM.
“The fact that I’m doing my science experiments is the best,” Tryggvason said in a 2015 interview. (opens on new page) with Canadian news newspaper Maclean’s. “I decided to look at how water works in the air. There have been a lot of experiments that have found water as a substance. I ended up developing this electromagnetic levitation field. [and] he flew on the Russian space station, he flew on my flight [and] He was involved in the planning of another event that now stands on the site. “
Landing at the launch site at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida, Tryggvason recorded a total of 11 days, 20 hours, 28 minutes and 7 seconds flying to a finish of 185 orbit of the Earth.
Bjarni Valdimar Tryggvason was born on Sept. 21, 1945, in Reykjavik, Iceland, but lived in Nova Scotia and British Columbia, Canada. He received his Bachelor of Applied Science degree in engineering physics from the University of British Columbia in 1972, and later completed his postgraduate career in engineering with a specialization in research mathematics and dynamics. water at the University of Western Ontario.
A registered pilot with more than 4,500 hours of flying experience, including 1,800 hours as a flight instructor, Tryggvason excelled in aerobatic flying and completed a captain’s stint in in an aircraft training camp with the Canadian Air Force. Prior to becoming an astronaut, Tryggvason worked as a meteorologist with the cloud physics team at the Meteorologic Service Canada and as a research fellow in commercial aerodynamics at the Boundary Layer Wind Tunnel Laboratory in University of Western Ontario.
He was a visiting research fellow at Kyoto University in Kyoto, Japan, in 1979 and at James Cook University of North Queensland in Townsville, Australia in 1980. He is a lecturer in research mathematics at University of Western Ontario from 1980 to 1982.
Tryggvason was serving as a researcher at the Low Speed Aerodynamics Laboratory at the National Research Council of Canada when the council selected him with Roberta Bondar, Marc Garneau, Steve MacLean, Ken Money and Robert Thirsk were members of his former astronaut team.
Prior to embarking on his own mission, Tryggvason trained as a supporter for Columbia’s STS-52 spacecraft and served as a project engineer for the deployed Space Vision System Target Spacecraft. from that missionary in 1992.
A year after returning from space, Tryggvason joined “The Penguins,” NASA’s 18th batch of astronauts selected in 1998. He spent two years of basic training. preparing Tryggvason for flight as a missionary engineer and previously assigned as the company’s ambassador to SAIL, or the Shuttle Avionics Integration Laboratory, at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston, used to monitor the flight schedule for each missionary.
Instead of pursuing an aviation career, Tryggvason left the Canadian Space Agency (CSA) to pursue private business. He returned to CSA for four years before retiring in 2008 and became a visiting teacher at the University of Western Ontario.
A member of the Canadian Aeronautics and Space Institute, Tryggvason received an honorary doctorate of science from the University of Western Ontario in 1998, an honorary doctorate of engineering from the University of Iceland in 2000 and an honorary doctorate of engineering. from the University of Victoria. in 2005. He was awarded the NASA Space Flight Medal for his publication in 1997, the Innovators Award of the Canadian Space Agency in 2004 and the Knight’s Cross of the Icelandic Order of the Falcon.
In 2003, Tryggvason and seven of his fellow Canadian sailors were honored by the Canada Post with posters. (opens on new page) taking away their idols.
“We lost a good friend today,” Canadian co -star Chris Hadfield said wrote on Twitter (opens on new page). “Pioneer astronaut, engineer engineer, proud parent, inventor, test pilot. A kind man, a funny man, a real man.”
In February 2009, Tryggvason flew a replica of Alexander Graham Bell’s Silver Dart to commemorate the centenary of its first flight in Canada and the United Kingdom.
Nowadays, Tryggvason organizes science demonstrations to go along with the “Story Time from Space” scholarship. (opens on new page) on the International Space Station and served as technical advisor for Roland Emmerich’s film “Moonfall,” (opens on new page) released earlier this year. He authored 50 published papers and held three patents.
Tryggvason is survived by his two oldest children, Michael Kristjan and Lauren Stephanie Chironne. He had previously married Lilyanna Zmijak, but they divorced.
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