In 1971, he graduated as an engineer from the
French Air Force Academy at Salon-de-Provence and qualified as a fighter pilot
at Tours in 1973. In 1981 he graduated from the Empire Test Pilots School
(ETPS) at Boscombe Down, England, where he won the "Hawker Hunter" and
"Patuxent shield" awards. He studied astrophysics at the University of Orsay,
France, from 1986 to 1987.
From 1973 until 1980, Jean-Pierre
Haigneré was a fighter pilot, then Squadron Leader on Mirage 5 and
Mirage IIIE aircraft. He was posted to the Bretigny-sur-Orge Flight Test Centre
in 1981 as the project test pilot for the Mirage 2000N aircraft and was
appointed Chief Test Pilot in 1983. He has logged 5500 hours flying on 105
different types of aircraft, including 1800 hours of test flight time. He holds
a commission as Général in the French Air Force. He also holds
current test pilot and air transport professional licenses, Airbus A300 and
A320 qualifications, helicopter private license, mountain and seaplane rating.
Brigadiergeneral French Air Force.
Jean-Pierre Haigneré was selected
as an astronaut by the French National Space Agency (
CNES) in September 1985. From 1986 to 1989 he headed
the Manned Flight Division of the Hermes and Manned Flight Directorate, and
took part in preliminary studies for the Hermes spaceplane. He also developed
and fine-tuned the Zero G Caravelle programme (parabolic flights), subsequently
becoming technical and operational officer-in-charge. From December 1990
Jean-Pierre Haigneré underwent training at Star City, near Moscow, as a
back-up crewmember for the French-Russian
Antares
spaceflight. He was selected as prime crew for the
Altaïr
mission in 1992, undergoing seven month training for a 21-day mission on
board the
Mir space station, which successfully took place from
July 01-22, 1993. In 1995 and 1996, he was involved at the Kaliningrad Russian
Space Control Centre in the operational aspects of the
ESA
Euromir 95
and French Cassiopée manned spaceflights. He then returned to France
where he was in charge, as test pilot, of flight assessment of the new Airbus
Zero-G aircraft. From 1997 until end of June 1998 Jean-Pierre Haigneré
trained at Star City for the French-Russian
"Pegase"
spaceflight.
In June 1998, Jean-Pierre Haigneré joined
ESA
European astronaut corps, whose homebase is
ESA
European Astronaut Centre in Cologne, Germany. In November 1999 he was assigned
Head of the Astronaut Division at the European Astronaut Centre (
EAC), Cologne.
As senior advisor to the
ESA
Director of Launchers, Jean-Pierre Haigneré is currently in charge of
studying all aspects for a Soyuz human spaceflight programme from Europe's
spaceport in French Guiana.
Enjoys flying all types of aircraft (sea
planes, WW2 fighter planes, helicopters), golf, funboard, playing saxophone and
reading.