24 Facts About Bjarni Tryggvason

Bjarni Tryggvason served as a Payload Specialist on Space Shuttle mission STS-85 in 1997, a nearly 12-day mission to study changes in the Earth's atmosphere.

Bjarni Tryggvason was born in Reykjavik, Iceland, on September 21,1945.

Bjarni Tryggvason moved to Canada with his parents when he was eight years old, and grew up in Vancouver, British Columbia.

Bjarni Tryggvason worked as a meteorologist with the cloud physics group at the Atmospheric Environment Service in Toronto in 1972 and 1973.

In 1982, Bjarni Tryggvason joined the Low Speed Aerodynamics Laboratory at the National Research Council in Ottawa.

Bjarni Tryggvason became part of the NRC team assembled to study the sinking of the Ocean Ranger oil rig in support of the Royal Commission investigation.

Bjarni Tryggvason designed and led the aerodynamics tests, which established the wind loads acting on the rig.

Bjarni Tryggvason had about 4,000 hours of flight experience, held an Airline Transport Rating and had experience as a flight instructor.

Bjarni Tryggvason was active in aerobatic flight and once qualified as captain in the Tutor jet trainer with the Royal Canadian Air Force.

Bjarni Tryggvason was one of the six Canadian astronauts selected in December 1983, and was the first Canadian astronaut born in Iceland.

Bjarni Tryggvason was back-up Payload Specialist to Steven MacLean for the CANEX-2 set of experiments which flew on Mission STS-52, October 22 to November 1,1992.

Bjarni Tryggvason was the Project Engineer for the design of the SVS target spacecraft which was deployed during that mission.

Bjarni Tryggvason was the principal investigator in the development of the Large Motion Isolation Mount, which has flown numerous times on the NASA Boeing KC-135 and DC-9 aircraft, for the Microgravity vibration Isolation Mount, which operated on the Russian Mir space station from April 1996 until January 1998, and for the MIM-2, which flew on STS-85 in August 1997.

Bjarni Tryggvason served as a payload specialist on STS-85, a 12-day mission to study changes in the Earth's atmosphere.

Bjarni Tryggvason was initially assigned as a Shuttle Avionics Integration Laboratory crew representative.

Bjarni Tryggvason supported integrated simulations on the ISS Training Facility.

Bjarni Tryggvason retired from the Canadian Space Agency in June 2008.

Bjarni Tryggvason returned to teaching at the University of Western Ontario.

Bjarni Tryggvason taught at the International Test Pilots School in London, Ontario, and continued to serve as a test pilot.

On February 22,2009, Bjarni Tryggvason piloted a replica of Alexander Graham Bell's Silver Dart, from the ice on Baddeck Bay, Cape Breton Island, Nova Scotia.

Bjarni Tryggvason's son went into aviation as a commercial pilot, while his daughter was a veterinarian.

Bjarni Tryggvason died on April 5,2022, at the age of 76.

Bjarni Tryggvason was a member of the Canadian Aeronautics and Space Institute.

Bjarni Tryggvason was furthermore awarded the NASA Space Flight Medal in 1997, the Innovators Award of the Canadian Space Agency in 2004, and the Knight's Cross of the Icelandic Order of the Falcon in 2000.