Chris van den Berg

From: Tristan Cools (tristan.cools@gmail.com)
Date: Thu Jun 02 2011 - 17:30:44 UTC

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    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
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