Astronaut Biography: Gregory E. Chamitoff

NAME: Gregory Errol Chamitoff
NASA Astronaut

PERSONAL DATA: Born August 6, 1962 in Montreal, Canada. Married to Chantal Caviness, M.D., Ph.D. They have two children, Natasha and Dimitri. His mother Shari Chamitoff and brother Ken Chamitoff live in Southern California. His father was the late Ashley Chamitoff. Recreational interests include scuba diving, backpacking, flying, skiing, racquetball, aikido, and guitar. Dr. Chamitoff is a certified divemaster and instrument rated pilot.

EDUCATION: Graduated from Blackford High School, San Jose, California, 1980. Bachelor of science in electrical engineering from California Polytechnic State University, 1984. Master of science in aeronautical engineering from the California Institute of Technology, 1985.

Doctor of philosophy in aeronautics and astronautics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 1992. Master of science in space science planetary geology from the University of Houston Clear Lake, 2002.

SPECIAL HONORS: AIAA Associate Fellow; AIAA Technical Excellence Award; NASA Silver Snoopy Award; NASA/USA Space Flight Awareness Award; C.S. Draper Laboratory Graduate Fellowship; IEEE Graduate Fellowship; Tau Beta Pi Honor Society Fellowship; Phi Kappa Phi Honor Society; Eta Kappa Nu Honor Society; Applied Magnetics Scholarships; Academic Excellence Award; Most Outstanding Senior Award; Degree of Excellence and California Statewide Speech Finalist; Eagle Scout.

EXPERIENCE: As an undergraduate student at Cal Poly, Chamitoff taught lab courses in circuit design and worked summer internships at Four Phase Systems, Atari Computers, Northern Telecom, and IBM. He developed a self-guided robot for his undergraduate thesis project. While at MIT and Draper Labs (1985-1992), Chamitoff worked on several NASA projects. He performed stability analysis for the deployment of the Hubble Space Telescope, designed flight control upgrades for the Space Shuttle autopilot, and developed attitude control system software for the Space Station. In his doctoral thesis, he developed a new approach for robust intelligent flight control of hypersonic vehicles. From 1993 to 1995, Dr. Chamitoff was a visiting professor at the University of Sydney, Australia, where he led a research group in the development of autonomous flight vehicles, and taught courses in flight dynamics and control. He has published numerous papers on aircraft and spacecraft guidance and control, trajectory optimization, and Mars mission design.

NASA EXPERIENCE: In 1995, Chamitoff joined Mission Operations at the Johnson Space Center, where he developed software applications for spacecraft attitude control monitoring, prediction, analysis, and maneuver optimization.

Selected by NASA for the Astronaut Class of 1998, Dr. Chamitoff started training in August 1998 and qualified for flight assignment as a Mission Specialist in 2000. His assignments within the astronaut office have included Space Station procedure and display development, crew support for ISS Expedition 6, lead CAPCOM for ISS Expedition 9, and Space Station Robotics.

In July 2002, Dr. Chamitoff was a crew-member on the Aquarius undersea research habitat for 9 days as part of the NEEMO 3 mission (NASA Extreme Environment Mission Operations).

Dr. Chamitoff is currently assigned as ISS Flight Engineer and Science Officer on Expedition 17 and will spend six months living and working onboard the International Space Station. He is scheduled to fly to the station as a mission specialist on shuttle mission STS-124, during which the Japanese Experiment Module will be installed and activated. He will return to Earth on shuttle mission STS-126.

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