GREGORY ERROL CHAMITOFF (PH.D.) 

NASA ASTRONAUT

Pronunciation: GREH-gur-ee CHAM-uh-toff

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. His 

recreational interests include scuba diving, backpacking, flying, skiing, Aikido, magic, guitar and 

chess. 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 Medals; California Astronaut Hall of Fame; 

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, Dr. 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 to 1992), Dr. 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. Currently, he holds adjunct professor positions with both the University of Sydney and 

Texas A&M University. He has published numerous papers on aircraft and spacecraft guidance and control, trajectory optimization 

and Mars mission design. 

NASA EXPERIENCE: In 1995, Dr. Chamitoff joined Mission Operations at the Johnson Space Center, where he led the 

development of software applications for spacecraft attitude control monitoring, prediction, analysis, and maneuver optimization. 

One of these applications is the 3-D “big screen” display of the International Space Station (ISS) and Space Shuttle used by Mission 

Control. 

Selected by NASA as an Astronaut Candidate in 1998, Dr. Chamitoff has worked on Space Station Robotics, served as Lead 

CAPCOM for ISS Expedition 9, supported the training of ISS Expedition 6 as a Crew Support Astronaut and helped to develop 

procedures and displays for ISS operations. In 2002, Dr. Chamitoff was a crewmember on the NEEMO-3 Mission (NASA Extreme 

Environment Mission Operations), living and working on the Aquarius undersea research habitat for 9 days.

In 2008, Dr. Chamitoff served as the Flight Engineer and Science Officer for a 6-month mission aboard the International Space 

Station during Expeditions 17 and 18. He launched to the station on Shuttle Mission STS-124 and returned to Earth on Shuttle 

Mission STS-126.

In 2011, Dr. Chamitoff served as a Mission Specialist on the last flight of Space Shuttle Endeavour, STS-134. During this mission, 

he performed operations with the Shuttle and Station Robotic Arms, including the installation of a pallet of spare equipment 

(ELC-3) and a particle physics observatory called the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer (AMS), which holds great promise for 

fundamental breakthroughs in our understanding of the Universe. He also performed two spacewalks, the last of which marked the 

completion of ISS assembly and was the final spacewalk of the Space Shuttle Program. To date, Dr. Chamitoff has logged more 

than 198 days in space.

National Aeronautics and

Space Administration

Biographical Data

 Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center

 Houston, Texas 77058
SOCIAL MEDIA: Twitter: https://twitter.com/Astro_Taz

 JULY 2011