Andreas Mogensen finished secondary school in
Copenhagen, Denmark in 1995, graduating with an International Baccalaureate
from the Copenhagen International School. He received a masters degree in
aeronautical engineering from Imperial College London in the UK in 1999. As
part of his studies, he spent a semester at the Instituto Superior Tecnico in
Lisbon, Portugal. Andreas Mogensen received a doctorate in aerospace
engineering from the University of Texas at Austin in the United States in
2007. His research interests include guidance, navigation and control of
spacecraft during entry, descent and landing; mission analysis and design; and
trajectory optimisation.
Andreas Mogensen began his professional career as
an engineer at Schlumberger Oilfield Services, where he worked as a drilling
services engineer from 2000 to 2001. He was stationed in the Republic of Congo
and the Republic of Angola working on offshore oil rigs. From 2001 to 2003,
Andreas Mogensen worked at Vestas Wind Systems in Ringkøbing, Denmark,
as a control systems engineer in the research and development department, where
he designed control systems for wind turbines. From 2004 to 2007, while working
towards his doctorate, Andreas Mogensen was a research assistant at the Center
for Space Research and a teaching assistant in the Department of Aerospace
Engineering at the University of Texas at Austin, USA. From 2007 to 2008,
Andreas worked as attitude and orbit control systems engineer for HE Space
Operations. He was subcontracted to Airbus in Friedrichshafen, Germany, for the
duration of his employment, where he worked on ESAs Swarm mission. Before
being selected as an astronaut in 2009, Andreas was a research fellow at the
Surrey Space Centre at the University of Surrey in the UK. His research focused
on spacecraft guidance, navigation and control during entry, descent and
landing for lunar missions. Alongside his astronaut duties, Andreas Mogensen is
also currently an adjunct lecturer at the National Space Institute at the
Technical University of Denmark (DTU Space).
Andreas Mogensen was selected
as an
ESA astronaut in May 2009 and completed the astronaut
basic training programme at the European Astronaut Centre in Cologne, Germany
in November 2010. Since completing the astronaut basic training programme,
Andreas Mogensen has been trained and certified as a private pilot by the
Lufthansa flight school and is trained and qualified for spacewalks using both
the American EMU spacesuit and the Russian Orlan suit. Andreas Mogensen
participated in the 2012
ESA
CAVES underground training course, as part of an international team of six
astronauts, living underground for a week and exploring a cave system in
Sardinia. The
ESA
CAVES training is a space-mission analogue, focusing on human behaviour and
performance in extreme environments. Andreas Mogensen was also selected as a
crewmember in two
NASA Extreme Environment Mission Operations (NEEMO)
missions. He participated in the NEEMO 17 mission (also called SEATEST 2) in
September 2013 and in the NEEMO 19 mission in September 2014. Both missions
took place at the Aquarius undersea research laboratory, off the coast of
Florida, USA, as an analogue for space exploration missions.
In addition
to his astronaut training activities, Andreas Mogensen worked on the
engineering team for the
ESA
Lunar Lander mission at
ESAs technical heart,
ESTEC, in the Netherlands, where he was involved in
the design of the guidance, navigation and control system for precision
landing. Andreas Mogensen is a qualified Eurocom at the Columbus Control Centre
in Munich, where he communicates with the astronauts on the International Space
Station.
Andreas Mogensen enjoys rugby, basketball, and squash. He is also
active in several adventure sports, including scuba diving, skydiving, kite
surfing, kayaking and mountaineering. Other interests include science, in
particular astrophysics, exobiology, and evolution.