Franz Artur Viehböck was born on August 24, 1960 in Vienna, Austria. He grad­u­at­ed in Electronics Engineering from the Vienna University of Technology. 

In 1988, when Viehböck worked as an Assistant Professor, the news­pa­per announce­ment of a pos­si­ble Austrian flight to the space sta­tion ​“Mir” caught his atten­tion. He inter­rupt­ed his doc­tor­al study to qual­i­fy as a can­di­date for the cos­mo­naut train­ing at the Russian Juri-Gagarin-Trainings-Center. 

Two years lat­er (in 1991) Franz Viehböck was cho­sen for the joint Austrian-Soviet Mission ​“Austromir“ and became the first and till now only Austrian to fly to space. During his stay at the ​“Mir” space sta­tion, he con­duct­ed 15 sci­en­tif­ic exper­i­ments in the fields of space med­i­cine, physics and space tech­nol­o­gy togeth­er with the cos­mo­nauts Alexander Volkov, Anatolyj Artsebarskyj and Sergei Krikalev. After sev­en days and 22 hours, Viehböck returned in Soyuz TM-12 and land­ed in Kazakhstan. 

Back on earth, Franz Viehböck worked for the Austrian gov­ern­ment giv­ing lec­tures about his expe­ri­ence and sci­en­tif­ic research on the space sta­tion ​“Mir”. In ear­ly 1994, fol­low­ing his ambi­tion to enter the world of High Tech indus­try, he accept­ed a posi­tion with Rockwell Space Systems Division in Los Angeles, California. Shortly after the Boeing Company acquired the for­mer Rockwell Aerospace and defense group, Viehböck became Director of International Business Development. In addi­tion to his activ­i­ties with Boeing, in March 2000 Franz Viehböck became Technology Adviser for the Governor of Lower Austria. After eight suc­cess­ful years with­in American space indus­try, Franz was ready for a new chal­lenge: he accept­ed the posi­tion of the President of Berndorf Band, an inno­v­a­tive com­pa­ny belong­ing to the Berndorf Group. January 2008 was marked with anoth­er change: Franz Viehböck became a mem­ber of the Management Board of the Berndorf Corporation, and since July of 2020 he serves as the CEO of this Corporation.

Sources
Picture
ESA
Text
www​.franzviehboeck​.com
Wikipedia