After two years of training he was chosen for the mission, and launched on 2 October 1991 together with the Russian cosmonauts Alexander A. Volkov and the Kazakh Toktar Aubakirov in Soyuz TM-13 from the Baikonur Cosmodrome spaceport.

Viehböck returned after 7 days and 22 hours with Soyuz TM-12, and landed in Kazakhstan on 10 October.

The following two years he gave numerous lectures on the mission, then went to the United States and worked for Rockwell.

Only two other space travellers became parents while on orbit: Mike Fincke and Randolph Bresnik (NASA).

This article incorporates public domain material from websites or documents of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.