Frimout, Dirk

Dirk Frimout, in full Dirk Dries David Damiaan, Viscount Frimout, (born March 21, 1941, Poperinge, Belg.), Belgian astrophysicist and astronaut, first Belgian citizen to travel into space.

Frimout received a degree in electrotechnical engineering from the University of Ghent in 1963 and earned a doctorate there in applied physics in 1970. He did postgraduate work at the University of Colorado in Boulder for two years (1971–72) as a research fellow from the European Space Research Organization. Frimout worked at the Belgian Institute for Space Aeronomy for 13 years (1965–78), where he performed research with stratospheric balloons and sounding rockets.

Frimout was selected as an astronaut candidate by the European Space Agency in 1977. During his training he worked at the Microgravity Division of the European Space Research and Technology Centre in Noordwijk, Neth. He was nominated as an alternate payload specialist for the STS-61-K flight, but that mission was canceled after the Challenger disaster on Jan. 28, 1986. In October 1989 the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) selected him as the backup payload specialist for the STS-45 mission (a renamed version of STS-61-K). Frimout became a primary crew member on STS-45 when American payload specialist Michael Lampton experienced medical problems, and he flew his first space mission aboard the Atlantis space shuttle in 1992.

STS-45 launched on March 24, 1992. During the nine-day mission, the astronauts carried out 12 experiments with the Atmospheric Laboratory for Applications and Science (ATLAS-1) cargo and made extremely detailed measurements of the chemical and physical properties of the atmosphere. Frimout was in charge of supervising the European scientific experiments.

Frimout’s status as the first Belgian to travel into space brought him immense fame. Upon his return to Belgium, he was made a Grand Officier de l’Ordre de Léopold and was ennobled with the title of viscount. Frimout later worked at Belgacom, a Belgian telecommunications company, as a director of research.