I received this message from Bart Hendrickx regarding the death of Chris van den Berg. Some of you will certainly remember that Chris was a guest on our first EUROSOM (European Satellite Observers Meeting) in 1994 at Hasselt, Belgium. Here is a picture of that meeting: http://www.angelfire.com/space/satimage2/meetings/eurosom1/original/S_007.JPG The person behind the slide projector is Bram Dorreman(Belgian Working Group Satellites President and searching something in a book). Chris van den Bergh is the person with the dark tie standing next to him. Although Chris was more a radio enthousiast, between him and the visual satellite observer community there were always good contacts. We will all miss him, Greetings, Tristan Cools BWGS - Belgian Working Group Satellites Op 29/05/2011 14:46, Bart Hendrickx schreef: It is with deep regret that I have to inform the list about the death of Dutch space watcher Chris van den Berg. Chris, who was 83 , passed away in hospital last night after having suffered a stroke earlier in the evening. Chris joined the Dutch Royal Navy after the Second World War and learned Russian while working there as a wireless operator. In 1953 he left the Navy to join the Dutch air traffic control service. His expertise in radio systems and his knowledge of the Russian language enabled him to monitor air-to-ground communications from Soviet manned spacecraft from the very beginning of the space age. After retiring in 1985, Chris was able to spend much more time on his hobby, avidly following conversations between Mir crews and Mission Control on an almost daily basis. Many are the nights that he sacrificed sleep to monitor nighttime dockings and EVAs. His enthusiasm was infectious for anyone who knew him, including me. He regularly appeared on Dutch radio to provide updates on Mir activities and many will remember him for his regular Mir mission reports, which he also posted on this list. On several occasions, Chris was able to glean information from his monitoring work and include it in his reports long before it became available through official channels, especially in the weeks following the collision of a Progress cargo ship with Mir in 1997. Chris also had the opportunity to travel to several Russian space facilities and was on hand at Baikonur to witness the launch of three Soyuz vehicles (Soyuz TM-12 in 1991, Soyuz TM-14 in 1992 and Soyuz TMA-4 with his fellow countryman André Kuipers in 2004). He was also at Cape Canaveral to see the launch of the first Shuttle-Mir docking mission (STS-71) in 1995. Chris had begun writing his autobiography, which you can read on his website : http://www.chrisvandenberg.com/index.html Chris leaves a wife, two sons and many grandchildren and even great-grandchildren. Our thoughts are with them. He will be dearly missed. Bart Hendrickx _______________________________________________ Seesat-l mailing list http://mailman.satobs.org/mailman/listinfo/seesat-l
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