Date of Birth: March 21, 1941
Age: 84
Dirk Dries David Damiaan, Viscount Frimout (born 21 March 1941 in Poperinge, Belgium) is an astrophysicist for the European Space Agency. He flew aboard NASA Space Shuttle mision STS-45 as a payload specialist, making him the first Belgian in space.
The European Space Agency is an intergovernmental organisation of 22 member states. Established in 1975 and headquartered in Paris, France, ESA has a worldwide staff of about 2,000 employees. ESA's space flight programme includes human spaceflight (mainly through participation in the International Space Station program); the launch and operation of unmanned exploration missions to other planets and the Moon; Earth observation, science and telecommunication; designing launch vehicles; and maintaining a major spaceport, the Guiana Space Centre at Kourou, French Guiana.
Classified Earth observation satellite officially reported as for "national resources/hydrology/meteorology surveying & disaster management" purposes.
Communications Satellite for the Indian Navy, replacing GSAT-7 for secure real-time links between Indian warships, submarines, aircraft, and shore-ba…
Dedicated rideshare flight to a mid-inclination orbit with dozens of small microsatellites and nanosatellites for commercial and government customers.
A batch of 28 satellites for the Starlink mega-constellation - SpaceX's project for space-based Internet communication system.
Tenth crewed flight to the Chinese space station.