Sigmund Jähn

Sigmund Jähn
Sigmund Jahn, 1978.
Born	13 February 1937(1937-02-13)
Place of birth	Saxony, Germany
Rank	Major General, Air Forces of the National People's Army

Sigmund Werner Paul Jähn (born 13 February 1937) is a German pilot, who became the first German to fly in space as part of the Soviet Union's Interkosmos programme.

Biography

Jähn was born in Morgenröthe-Rautenkranz, in the Vogtland district of Saxony, Germany. From 1943 to 1951 he attended school in his hometown, and after school trained as a printer.

Sigmund Jähn's national space patch from the airforce of the National People's Army

In 1955 he joined the East German Air Force, where he became a pilot and military scientist. From 1966 until 1970 he studied at the Gagarin Air Force Academy in Monino, in the Soviet Union, and afterwards worked in the administration of the East German air force, responsible for pilot education and flight safety.

Jähn was awarded the title Hero of the Soviet Union on 3 September 1978. In 1983 he received a doctorate in physics at the "Zentralinstitut für Physik der Erde" in Potsdam, specialising in remote sensing of the earth.

Starting in 1990, after German reunification, he worked as a freelance consultant for the formerly West German spaceflight agency German Aerospace Center (DLR), and from 1993 also for the European Space Agency (ESA) to prepare for the Euromir missions. In 2002 he finally retired from this job.

Jähn is married and has two children. He lives in Strausberg and he enjoys reading and hunting.

Awards

• Hero of the GDR
• Hero of the Soviet Union
• File:OrdenMarksa.png Order of Karl Marx
• Order of Lenin
• Space Exploration Medal

Asteroid 17737 was named "Sigmundjähn" in 2001.

Spaceflight

Sigmund Jähn, 2009

In 1976, Jähn was selected with his backup Eberhard Köllner for the Interkosmos programme. He trained in Star City near Moscow for the next two years, and flew on board Soyuz 31 (launched 26 August 1978) to the Soviet space station Salyut 6, and returned on Soyuz 29, landing on 3 September 1978. He spent 7 days, 20 hours, and 49 minutes in space.

During and after the flight, he and the socialist authorities of the GDR pronounced him "the first German cosmonaut", which was remarkable, as in those days the East German state normally stressed that their people were "GDR citizens", to distinguish themselves from West Germany.

Quotes

• "Dear TV viewers in the German Democratic Republic. I am very happy for the chance to be the first German to take part in this manned space flight." (during his space flight)
• "Mankind is advanced technically. Man can build space stations, can assemble them in space, and ponders about landing on Mars, but the development of mankind itself seems to stagnate on stone age level." (Radio broadcast in the 1990s)
• "…what I saw then was total happiness: Our Earth, in shining in bright blue. Just like a dream." (SUPERillu magazine interview, 1998)
• "As a pilot I just could not resist the offer to fly a space capsule…" (speech in front of DLR audience, 2005)

Cultural influence

• A taxi driver greatly resembling Jähn appears in the German film Good Bye, Lenin!. Part of the film's plot revolves around the taxi driver being asked to pose as Jähn in mocked up news footage, while the real Jähn is a boyhood idol of the protagonist. The taxi driver was played by Swiss actor Stefan Walz.
• German pop group Die Prinzen, from the same region of Germany, recorded a song entitled "Wer ist Sigmund Jähn?" ("Who is Sigmund Jähn?") on their 1999 album So viel Spaß für wenig Geld.

External links

• Spacefacts biography of Sigmund Jähn