Bjarni Tryggvason, one of Canada's original six astronauts, died at the age of 76.
Leland Melvin, who trained with Tryggvason as a member of the U.S. space agency, shared the news of his death on Monday.
Rest In Peace Penguin. It was an honor to train and work with you and I wish you the best. A lot of love.
The CSA confirmed Tryggvason's death with a statement posted on the social networking site.
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The agency wrote that Bjarni Tryggvason passed away, with profound sadness and heavy hearts.
Facts and information about the Canadian Space Agency.
Tryggvason had only one spaceflight before his training. In 1983, Tryggvason was selected by the National Research Council of Canada to become one of the country's first six astronauts.
The deployment and retrieval of a free-flying satellite that studied changes in Earth's atmosphere was one of the highlights of the 12-day mission.
The main task of Tryggvason was to operate and evaluate the Microgravity Vibration Isolation Mount, a small, Canadian-developed instrument that was designed to isolated experiments from any effects of crew activity. An upgrade to a similar device installed and successfully used on the former Russian space station Mir isolated individual experiments. It was modified for use on the International Space Station.
Mission Control woke Tryggvason and his five crewmates with a song by The Beach Boys as a tribute to Tryggvason.
Tryggvason said in a 2015 interview with the Canadian news magazine that he was working on his own science experiments. There are many experiments that use fluid as an element. I was involved in the design and development of another levitation platform that is currently on the space station, as well as flying that platform on my flight.
Tryggvason spent a total of 11 days, 20 hours, 28 minutes and 7 seconds in flight, landing near where he was launched at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
Bjarni Valdimar Tryggvason lived in Nova Scotia and British Columbia when he was younger. He received his Bachelor of Applied Science degree in engineering physics from the University of British Columbia in 1972 and later completed postgraduate work in engineering with a specialization in applied mathematics and fluid dynamics at the University of Western Ontario.
An airline transport-rated pilot with more than 4,500 hours of flight experience, Tryggvason was a flight instructor and completed a captaincy check with the Canadian Air Force. Tryggvason worked as a research associate in industrial aerodynamics at the Boundary Layer Wind Tunnel Laboratory at the University of Western Ontario, and as a meteorologist with the cloud physics group at the Meteorologic Service Canada.
He was a guest research associate at Kyoto University in Kyoto, Japan, in 1979 and at James Cook University of North Queensland in 1980. He taught applied mathematics at the University of Western Ontario from 1980 to 1982.
The National Research Council of Canada chose Tryggvason as one of its first astronauts, along with Roberta Bondar, Steve MacLean, Ken Money, and Robert Thirsk.
Tryggvason served as the project engineer for the Space Vision System Target Spacecraft that was deployed from the mission of Columbia in 1992 and trained as a backup for the space shuttle crew.
Tryggvason joined the 18th class of astronauts selected by NASA in 1998. After two years of basic training, Tryggvason was assigned to the Johnson Space Center in Houston as a crew representative to check out the Shuttle Avionics Integration Laboratory.
Tryggvason took leave of the CSA to work in the private sector instead of pursuing another spaceflight assignment. He was a visiting professor at the University of Western Ontario after retiring from the CSA.
In 1998, Tryggvason was awarded an honorary doctorate of science from the University of Western Ontario, and in 2000 and 2005 he was awarded an honorary doctorate of engineering from the University of Victoria. He was awarded the NASA Space Flight Medal for his launch in 1997 and the Canadian Space Agency's Innovators Award in 2004.
In 2003 Tryggvason and seven of his fellow Canadian astronauts were honored by the Canada Post with postage stamps.
Chris Hadfield lost a good friend today. A kind, funny, original man.
In February 2009, Tryggvason piloted a replica of Alexander Graham Bell's Silver Dart aircraft to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the first flight in Canada and the British Empire.
More recently, Tryggvason designed the science demonstrations to accompany the story time from space educational program aboard the International Space Station and served as a technical advisor for the film Moonfall. He held three patents.
Tryggvason is survived by his two children. He was previously married to another woman.
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