National Aeronautics and Space Administration Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center Houston, Texas 77058
Biographical Data

Gregory Errol Chamitoff (Ph.D.) 
NASA Astronaut

PERSONAL DATA:  Originally from 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, aikido, magic and guitar.  Dr. Chamitoff is a certified divemaster and instrument rated pilot.

EDUCATION:  Blackford High School, San Jose, California, 1980.
B.S., Electrical Engineering, California Polytechnic State University, 1984.
M.S., Aeronautical Engineering, California Institute of Technology, 1985.
Ph.D., Aeronautics and Astronautics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 1992.
M.S., Space Science (Planetary Geology), University of Houston Clear Lake, 2002.

SPECIAL HONORS:  NASA Distinguished Service Medal, NASA Space Flight Medal, Cal Poly Honored Alumni Award; 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.  One of these applications is the 3D ‘big screen’ display of the Station and Shuttle used by Mission Control. 

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 to the crew of STS-134 to the International Space Station.  The mission will deliver the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer (AMS), a state-of-the-art cosmic ray particle physics detector designed to examine fundamental issues about matter and the origin and structure of the universe.

SPACE FLIGHT EXPERIENCE:  Dr. Chamitoff served 179 days tour of duty aboard the International Space Station as Expedition 17-18 ISS Flight Engineer and Science Officer.  He launched to the station with the crew of STS-124 on May 31, 2008, docking with the station on June 2, 2008.  He returned to Earth on shuttle mission STS-126, having logged a total of 183 days in space. 

AUGUST 2009