Marcos César Pontes
| Marcos Cesar Pontes | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| AEB Astronaut / Astronauta | |
| Nationality | Brazilian |
| Status | Active |
| Born |
March 11, 1963 Bauru, São Paulo, Brazil |
|
Other occupation
|
Fighter pilot |
| Rank | Lieutenant-Colonel |
|
Time in space
|
9d 21h 17m |
| Selection | 1998 NASA Group |
| Missions | Soyuz TMA-8, Soyuz TMA-7 |
|
Mission insignia
|
 |
Marcos Cesar Pontes (born March 11, 1963) is a Brazilian Air Force pilot, engineer, AEB astronaut and author. He became the first South American and the first Lusophone to go into space when he launched into the International Space Station aboard Soyuz TMA-8 on March 30, 2006. He is the only Brazilian to have completed the NASA astronaut training program, although he switched to training in Russia after NASA's Space Shuttle program encountered problems. He currently lives in Houston with his wife and two children.
Pontes was born in the town of Bauru, in the southeastern state of São Paulo. His father Vergílio was a servant of the Instituto Brasileiro do Café, currently extinct, and his mother Zuleika was clerk of the Rede Ferroviária Federal (RFFSA), also extinct.
Pontes is one of the most experienced jet pilots in the Brazilian Air Force (FAB), where he holds the rank of Lieutenant-Colonel and has flown for more than 2000 hours in 25 different aircraft. In June 1998, he was selected by the Brazilian Space Agency to train in the NASA space program after he acquired a space-related background in the Aeronautical Engineering division of the Instituto Tecnológico de Aeronáutica (the Aeronautics Technological Institute, or "ITA"), which he transferred to in pursuit of a childhood dream to become an astronaut. He began NASA training in August 1998 and qualified as Space Shuttle Mission Specialist in December 2000. He attended the Naval Postgraduate School of the US Navy in 1998.
Initially, Pontes' maiden spaceflight was scheduled to be on a Space Shuttle, where he was to help transport the ExPRESS Pallet, which would have been the International Space Station's first Brazilian-made component, into orbit. Negotiations between NASA and AEB (the Brazilian Space Agency) fell through due to the Express Pallet budgetary concerns from the Brazilian counterpart. During the delay Pontes ran a campaign to hasten the Brazilian government to complete the Express Pallet, and worked on technical assignments in the Astronaut Office Space Station Operations Branch at NASA. His flight was postponed indefinitely when AEB confirmed that it could not produce the Express Pallet and its components for NASA.
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