Claude Nicollier

Claude Nicollier, who holds a doctorate in astrophysics from the University of Geneva, worked at the University of Lausanne and at the Geneva Observatory after his studies. He completed military and civil pilot training and was then employed by Swissair as a DC-9 airline pilot. At the end of 1976 he received a scholarship from the European Space Agency (ESA) in the Space Science Department in Noordwijk (NL). In 1978, ESA selected him for the first group of European astronauts and, thanks to an agreement with NASA, he joined group 9 of American astronaut candidates. Training as a mission specialist was followed in 1988 by the Empire Test Pilots School in Great Britain, where he received his test pilot certificate in December 1988. As an ESA employee, Nicollier worked for NASA in Houston, Texas, for around 25 years from 1980. As a mission specialist, he took part in four Space Shuttle missions between 1992 and 1999 and was also involved in the spectacular first repair of the Hubble Space Telescope in 1993. Claude Nicollier has received numerous international awards, now lives in French-speaking Switzerland and is, among other things, a member of the board of directors of the Swatch Group, head of the Solar Impulse flight tests and a professor at the ETH Lausanne.