Dirk Dries David Damiaan, Viscount Frimout (born 21 March 1941 in

Poperinge Poperinge (; , ; ) is a City status in Belgium, city and Municipalities of Belgium, municipality located in the Belgium, Belgian province of West Flanders, Flemish Region, and has a history going back to medieval times. The municipality comprises ...

, Belgium) is a Belgian astrophysicist for the

European Space Agency The European Space Agency (ESA) is a 23-member International organization, international organization devoted to space exploration. With its headquarters in Paris and a staff of around 2,547 people globally as of 2023, ESA was founded in 1975 ...

. He flew aboard NASA Space Shuttle mission STS-45 as a

payload specialist A payload specialist (PS) was an individual selected and trained by commercial or research organizations for flights of a specific payload on a NASA Space Shuttle mission. People assigned as payload specialists included individuals selected by t ...

, making him the first Belgian in space.

Education

Elementary School A primary school (in Ireland, India, the United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, Trinidad and Tobago, Jamaica, South Africa, and Singapore), elementary school, or grade school (in North America and the Philippines) is a school for primary ...

Secondary School A secondary school, high school, or senior school, is an institution that provides secondary education. Some secondary schools provide both ''lower secondary education'' (ages 11 to 14) and ''upper secondary education'' (ages 14 to 18), i.e., b ...

at Koninklijk Technisch Atheneum (K.T.A) at

Ghent Ghent ( ; ; historically known as ''Gaunt'' in English) is a City status in Belgium, city and a Municipalities of Belgium, municipality in the Flemish Region of Belgium. It is the capital and largest city of the Provinces of Belgium, province ...

, Belgium. Received an

Engineer's degree An engineer's degree is an advanced academic degree in engineering which is conferred in Europe, some countries of Asia and Latin America, North Africa and a few institutions in the United States. The degree may require a thesis but always require ...

electrical engineering Electrical engineering is an engineering discipline concerned with the study, design, and application of equipment, devices, and systems that use electricity, electronics, and electromagnetism. It emerged as an identifiable occupation in the l ...

University of Ghent Ghent University (, abbreviated as UGent) is a Public university, public research university located in Ghent, in the East Flanders province of Belgium. Located in Flanders, Ghent University is the second largest Belgian university, consisting o ...

in 1963; a

PhD A Doctor of Philosophy (PhD, DPhil; or ) is a terminal degree that usually denotes the highest level of academic achievement in a given discipline and is awarded following a course of graduate study and original research. The name of the deg ...

applied physics Applied physics is the application of physics to solve scientific or engineering problems. It is usually considered a bridge or a connection between physics and engineering. "Applied" is distinguished from "pure" by a subtle combination of fac ...

from

in 1970; post-doctorate at

University of Colorado The University of Colorado (CU) is a system of public universities in Colorado. It consists of four institutions: the University of Colorado Boulder, the University of Colorado Colorado Springs, the University of Colorado Denver, and the U ...

Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics The Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics (LASP) is a research organization at the University of Colorado Boulder. LASP is a research institute with over one hundred research scientists ranging in fields from solar influences, to Earth ...

(

ESRO The European Space Research Organisation (ESRO) was an international organisation founded by 10 European nations with the intention of jointly pursuing scientific research in space. It was founded in 1964. As an organisation ESRO was based on a ...

fellow) in 1971–1972.

Career

*1965-1978 Belgian Institute for Space Aeronomy. As Head of Section Instrumentation, performed experiments with stratospheric balloons and sounding rockets. *1978-1984

(ESA) as Crew Activities Coordinator and Experiment Coordinator for Spacelab-1. *1984-1989 Microgravity Division of ESTEC, responsible for sounding rocket program, parabolic flights, experiments on EURECA, reflight of Spacelab-1 experiments. Frimout flew as a payload specialist on STS-45 Atlantis (24 March to 2 April 1992). STS-45 was launched from and returned to land at the

Kennedy Space Center The John F. Kennedy Space Center (KSC, originally known as the NASA Launch Operations Center), located on Merritt Island, Florida, is one of the NASA, National Aeronautics and Space Administration's (NASA) ten NASA facilities#List of field c ...

Florida Florida ( ; ) is a U.S. state, state in the Southeastern United States, Southeastern region of the United States. It borders the Gulf of Mexico to the west, Alabama to the northwest, Georgia (U.S. state), Georgia to the north, the Atlantic ...

. It was the first

Spacelab Spacelab was a reusable laboratory developed by European Space Agency (ESA) and used on certain spaceflights flown by the Space Shuttle. The laboratory comprised multiple components, including a pressurized module, an unpressurized carrier, ...

mission dedicated to

NASA The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA ) is an independent agencies of the United States government, independent agency of the federal government of the United States, US federal government responsible for the United States ...

's Mission to Planet Earth. During the nine-day flight, the crew aboard Atlantis operated the twelve experiments that constituted the ATLAS-1 (Atmospheric Laboratory for Applications and Science) cargo. ATLAS-1 obtained a vast array of detailed measurements of atmospheric chemical and physical properties, which contributed significantly to improving our understanding of our climate and atmosphere. In addition, this was the first time an artificial beam of electrons was used to stimulate a man-made auroral discharge. At mission conclusion, Frimout had traveled 3.2 million miles in 143

Earth Earth is the third planet from the Sun and the only astronomical object known to Planetary habitability, harbor life. This is enabled by Earth being an ocean world, the only one in the Solar System sustaining liquid surface water. Almost all ...

orbit In celestial mechanics, an orbit (also known as orbital revolution) is the curved trajectory of an object such as the trajectory of a planet around a star, or of a natural satellite around a planet, or of an artificial satellite around an ...

s and logged over 214 hours in space. His flight made him instantaneously very famous in Belgium and triggered what was called ''Frimout-mania''. Prince Philippe of Belgium talked with him when he was in space and a ticker tape parade was organized when he came back to Belgium. Currently, Frimout is an ESA staff member. He is a senior engineer in the Payload Utilization Department of the Columbus Directorate, responsible for the ESA support to the European experiments on ATLAS-1, and the Microgravity Measurement Assembly to be flown on D2. He has authored more than 30 publications relating to Atmospheric Physics Experiments, Crew Training for Spacelab, and Microgravity Experiments.

Personal

He is married and has two children. Hobbies include running, cycling, walking, traveling, and chess.

Awards and honors

*1971–72 Postdoctoral Research Fellow from ESRO ( European Space Research Organization). *After his spaceflight, Frimout was ennobled and given the title of

viscount A viscount ( , for male) or viscountess (, for female) is a title used in certain European countries for a noble of varying status. The status and any domain held by a viscount is a viscounty. In the case of French viscounts, the title is ...

in the

Belgian nobility The Belgian nobility comprises Belgian individuals or families recognized as noble with or without a title of nobility in the Kingdom of Belgium. The Belgian constitution states that no specific privileges are attached to the nobility. History ...

Organizations

*Fellow of the Royal Academy for Science and the Arts of Belgium, Class of Technical Sciences, since 2009. *Associate member of the Belgian National Council for Space Research. *Member of K VIV (Royal Association of Flemish Engineers). *Association of Engineers from the University of Ghent.

References

External links

NASA Note about Frimout, May 1992 (archived at Archive.org)
{{DEFAULTSORT:Frimout, Dirk D. 1941 births Living people Belgian astrophysicists Belgian astronauts Belgian electrical engineers Viscounts of Belgium Ghent University alumni University of Colorado Boulder alumni People from Poperinge Members of the Royal Flemish Academy of Belgium for Science and the Arts 20th-century Belgian engineers 21st-century Belgian engineers Space Shuttle program astronauts Dutch-speaking astronauts