Andreas Mogensen


Andreas Enevold Mogensen is a Danish engineer and astronaut. He was the first Dane to fly in space as part of the iriss programme.

Biography

He was born in Copenhagen. In Denmark he worked as an engineer in the R&D department of Vestas Wind Systems. He has worked in Germany as an attitude and orbit control system and guidance, navigation & control engineer for HE Space Operations associated with the SWARM mission. His position when he was selected by ESA was Aerospace Engineering at Surrey Space Centre, University of Surrey. He currently lives in Austin, Texas.

Career

During his career Mogensen has also spent time in Thailand, Singapore, Portugal, Congo, and the United States. His pastimes include rugby, mountaineering and diving.

In ESA

Mogensen was selected to become the first Danish astronaut by the European Space Agency in May 2009. He completed initial training and became a member of the European Astronaut Corps in November 2010.
On June 10, 2014, NASA announced that Mogensen would serve as an aquanaut aboard the Aquarius underwater laboratory during the undersea exploration mission, which began on September 7, 2014 and lasted seven days.

Iriss

Mogensen's mission to the ISS was called "iriss". The mission name was chosen from suggestions received from across Europe. "iriss" had two logos, one to highlight the overall mission and one for the educational outreach activities.
On September 2, 2015, Mogensen was launched with Soyuz TMA-18M to ISS, and landed with Soyuz TMA-16M ten days later. He was travelling with another visiting flight engineer, Aidyn Aimbetov. Among the items Andreas brought along were LEGO figures and a poster for Copenhagen Suborbitals.
Because of the short mission duration, Mogensen worked up to 9.5-hour days instead of the 8-hour workdays that are normal on the station. His missions included remote control of a robot on Earth, and filming Red Sprites and Blue Jets lightnings above thunderclouds, directed from Earth. He also tried a new kind of Skinsuit to alleviate back-pain astronauts feel due to the lengthening of their spine and used augmented reality goggles during his maintenance tasks.
Mogensen left the station on September 11, 2015. Sergey Volkov was the ascent pilot and Gennady Padalka was the descent pilot. The crew landed at 00:51 UTC on September 12, 2015, just over three hours after departing the ISS.
Mogensen received the Danish Royal Medal of Recompense for his efforts.

Education