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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