Vladimir Pletser (born 28 February 1956) is Director of Space Training Operations at Blue Abyss since 2018, where he is in charge of developing astronaut training programs. From 2016 to early 2018, he was a Visiting Professor and Scientific Adviser at the Technology and Engineering Centre for Space Utilization (CSU) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing, China. He supported the preparation of scientific experiments in microgravity for the Chinese Tiangong space station and for aircraft parabolic flights. He worked previously from 1985 till early 2016 as a senior Physicist Engineer at the European Space Research and Technology Centre (ESTEC) of ESA. He is an expert in microgravity during aircraft parabolic flights for which he holds a world record. He is known as ‘Mister Parabolic Flights’, ‘Mister Parabolas’, ‘Homo Parabolicus’ or ‘Mister Microgravity’. An astronaut candidate for Belgium since 1991, he spent two months in training in 1995 at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston. Selected by the Mars Society in 2001, he participated in three international campaigns of crewed Mars mission simulations.
Early life Pletser was born in Brussels, Belgium. Graduated in Latin-Mathematics from the Institut Saint-Boniface of Brussels in 1973 and in Special Scientific from the Collège Saint-Michel of Brussels in 1974; graduated from the Université Catholique de Louvain (UCL) in Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium, as civil engineer in mechanics, specialism dynamics and systems (1979), Master in physics in space geodesy (1980), and Ph.D. in physics in astronomy and astrophysics (1990).
Organisations International Academy of Astronautics; International Astronautical Federation; Committee on Space Research (COSPAR); European Low Gravity Research Association; European Physical Society; Belgian Physical Society; Société royale belge d'Astronomie, de Météorologie et de Physique du Globe; American Mathematical Society; Belgian Mathematical Society; British Interplanetary Society; Association of Mars Explorers; The Mars Society; Mars Society Belgium; Euro Space Society; European Interplanetary Free Floaters; The Society of Interplanetary Free Floaters and other scientific and technical organizations.
Career Pletser worked as Research Engineer from 1980 to 1981 at the Department of External Geophysics of the Royal Meteorological Institute of Belgium on the ionospheric Doppler effect, and, from 1981 to 1982, at the Faculty of Agronomy of the Université Catholique de Louvain on problems of applied statistics, mathematical modeling and computer simulation. In 1982, he became assistant professor at the Faculty of Sciences of the Université Catholique de Louvain and detached at the University of Kinshasa, Congo (ex-Zaire), where he lectured until 1985 in Physics, Applied Mathematics, Astronomy and Geophysics.
Career at ESA In 1985, Pletser joined the Microgravity Project and Platform Division in the Human Spaceflight and Operations Directorate at ESA’s ESTEC in Noordwijk, Netherlands.
Development of scientific instrumentation Since 1985, he has followed the technical development of scientific payloads and was directly involved in 30 microgravity experiments carried out during space missions as Experiment Coordinator and Responsible for ground operations for experiments:
in fluid physics with the Advanced Fluid Physics Module on Spacelab D2 - STS-55 mission of April 1993, and the Bubble, Drop and Particle Unit on Spacelab LMS – STS-78 mission of June 1996. in protein crystallization with the Advanced Protein Crystallization Facility on Spacehab-STS-95 mission of October 1998, and the Protein Crystallisation Diagnostics Facility (PCDF) that flew aboard the ISS Columbus module (STS-122) from February 2008 to July 2009 (STS-119/STS-127). on zeolites with the instruments Zeogrid in the ISS Russian Zvezda module in October 1992 and Nanoslab in the ISS Destiny module in October 1992 and October 1993. on symbiotic processes between fishes and algae with the instrument AquaHab aboard the Russian satellite Foton M3 in September 2007.
Parabolic flights From 1985 till early 2016, Pletser was responsible for ESA aircraft parabolic flight campaigns for short-duration microgravity experiments.
ESA Research and Student campaigns He organized and led 65 ESA microgravity research campaigns for physical, life sciences, and technology experiments with NASA's KC-135/930 from 1985 to 1988, CNES’s Caravelle from 1989 to 1995, the Russian Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center’s Ilyushin Il-76MDK in 1994, the Dutch NLR Cessna Citation II in 2001, the CNES-ESA’s Airbus A300 ZERO-G from 1997 to 2014, and the Airbus A310 ZERO-G since 2015. In 2011 and 2012, he organized and led with CNES and DLR the first two Joint European Partial-g Parabolic Flight campaigns for research at Moon and Mars gravity levels with the Airbus A300 ZERO-G. From 1994 to 2006, he took part in the organization and the flights of 8 ESA Student campaigns with CNES’s Caravelle in 1994, NASA’s KC-135/931 in 1995 and the Airbus A300 ZERO-G from 2000 to 2006. Since 2010, he participates in ESA's ‘Fly Your Thesis [1]’ programme, inviting European University students to submit experiment proposals related to their thesis research. The selected experiments take then part in research campaigns.
Brussels and Belgium student campaigns In 2002, he initiated a new project in Belgium, to have secondary school students flying in weightlessness during ESA Student campaigns. Collaborating with the Region of Brussels-Capital and the Euro Space Society, he organized a contest for secondary schools in Brussels inviting students to propose experiments to be realized in microgravity. Five teams of Brussels secondary schools took part in the third ESA Student campaign in July 2003 aboard the Airbus A300 ZERO-G operating for the first time out of France and landing in Brussels. This pedagogical project encountered such a large success that it was repeated in 2006 with the Belgian Federal Science Policy Office and the Euro Space Society for secondary school students of the whole of Belgium. In July 2006, six teams of Belgian secondary schools participated in the ninth ESA Student campaign with the Airbus A300 landing again in Brussels.
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