Claude Nicollier

Claude Nicollier is a Swiss astronomer, physicist, pilot and European Space Agency astronaut, and the first astronaut from Switzerland. He flew four Space Shuttle missions: STS-46 in 1992, STS-61 in 1993, STS-75 in 1996 and STS-103 in 1999. STS-61 was Hubble Servicing Mission 1, which fitted corrective optics to the Hubble Space Telescope. On STS-103, the third Hubble servicing flight, he made an eight-hour spacewalk, the first by an ESA astronaut on a shuttle mission. He retired from ESA in 2007.

Born: 2 September 1944
Country: Switzerland
Flights: 4: STS-46 (1992), STS-61 (1993), STS-75 (1996), STS-103 (1999)
Time in space: 42 days 12 hours

Data as of 2 November 2026. Source: Wikidata (CC0). All people who have flown in space.

Events

2 December 1993

Hubble Servicing Mission 1
- Space Shuttle
- Richard O. Covey, Ken Bowersox, Story Musgrave, Jeffrey A. Hoffman, Kathryn C. Thornton, Claude Nicollier, Thomas Akers
Hubble was built to be serviced by astronauts, with handrails and instruments designed to be removed and replaced.
2 videos
- NASA Goddard
- Aviation & Space
Hubble Space Telescope
- Hubble Space Telescope, Space Shuttle
Hubble is a 2.4-metre telescope in low Earth orbit, built so that astronauts could service it. NASA and ESA built it to see the universe without the blur of the atmosphere, and to settle how fast the universe was expanding.
3 videos
- DCODE by Discovery
- NASA Goddard
- Primal Space