Maurizio Cheli (born 4 May 1959, in

Zocca Zocca ( Frignanese: ) is a ''comune'' (municipality) in the Province of Modena in the Italian region Emilia-Romagna, located about southwest of Bologna and about south of Modena. Zocca borders the following municipalities: Castel d'Aiano, G ...

) is an Italian air force officer, a

European Space Agency , owners = , headquarters = Paris, Île-de-France, France , coordinates = , spaceport = Guiana Space Centre , seal = File:ESA emblem seal.png , seal_size = 130px , image = Views in the Main Control Room (1205 ...

astronaut An astronaut (from the Ancient Greek (), meaning 'star', and (), meaning 'sailor') is a person trained, equipped, and deployed by a human spaceflight program to serve as a commander or crew member aboard a spacecraft. Although generally r ...

and a veteran of one

NASA The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA ) is an independent agency of the US federal government responsible for the civil space program, aeronautics research, and space research. NASA was established in 1958, succeeding t ...

Space Shuttle The Space Shuttle is a retired, partially reusable low Earth orbital spacecraft system operated from 1981 to 2011 by the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) as part of the Space Shuttle program. Its official program na ...

mission. A native of

Modena Modena (, , ; egl, label=Emilian language#Dialects, Modenese, Mòdna ; ett, Mutna; la, Mutina) is a city and ''comune'' (municipality) on the south side of the Po Valley, in the Province of Modena in the Emilia-Romagna region of northern I ...

, Cheli attended the

Italian Air Force Academy The Accademia Aeronautica is the Italian Air Force Academy, the institute for the training of Air Force officers. It's located in Pozzuoli in the province of Naples, in the Italian region of Campania. Among the oldest aviation academies in th ...

and trained as a test pilot in 1988 at the

Empire Test Pilots' School The Empire Test Pilots' School (ETPS) is a British training school for test pilots and flight test engineers of fixed-wing and rotary-wing aircraft at MoD Boscombe Down in Wiltshire, England. It was established in 1943, the first of its type. T ...

, England. He was awarded the McKenna Trophy as the best student on his course, as well as the Sir Alan Cobham Award for the highest standard of flying and the Hawker Hunter Thropy for he best Preview Handling report. He studied

geophysics Geophysics () is a subject of natural science concerned with the physical processes and physical properties of the Earth and its surrounding space environment, and the use of quantitative methods for their analysis. The term ''geophysics'' som ...

at the

University of Rome La Sapienza The Sapienza University of Rome ( it, Sapienza – Università di Roma), also called simply Sapienza or the University of Rome, and formally the Università degli Studi di Roma "La Sapienza", is a public research university located in Rome, Ita ...

and earned a master's degree in

aerospace engineering Aerospace engineering is the primary field of engineering concerned with the development of aircraft and spacecraft. It has two major and overlapping branches: aeronautical engineering and astronautical engineering. Avionics engineering is si ...

from the

University of Houston The University of Houston (UH) is a Public university, public research university in Houston, Texas. Founded in 1927, UH is a member of the University of Houston System and the List of universities in Texas by enrollment, university in Texas ...

. He then trained with the

United States Air Force The United States Air Force (USAF) is the air service branch of the United States Armed Forces, and is one of the eight uniformed services of the United States. Originally created on 1 August 1907, as a part of the United States Army Signal ...

and was selected as an astronaut candidate by the European Space Agency in 1992. He holds the rank of lieutenant colonel in the

Italian Air Force , colours = , colours_label = , march = (Ordinance March of the Air Force) by Alberto Di Miniello , mascot = , anniversaries = 28 March ...

. He flew aboard

STS-75 STS-75 was a 1996 NASA Space Shuttle mission, the 19th mission of the ''Columbia'' orbiter. Crew Allen, Hoffman, Nicollier and Chang-Díaz had previously been members of the STS-46 crew, which had flown the TSS-1 experiment in 1992. Mission ...

in 1996 as a mission specialist. That same year he joined

Alenia Aeronautica Alenia Aeronautica was an Italian aerospace company. Its subsidiaries included Alenia Aermacchi and Alenia Aeronavali. Alenia Aeronautica was also the part-owner of ATR, a joint venture with European Aeronautic Defence and Space Company (EADS). ...

, and two years later he became Chief Test Pilot for combat aircraft. His last test program was for the

Eurofighter Typhoon The Eurofighter Typhoon is a European multinational twin-engine, canard delta wing, multirole fighter. The Typhoon was designed originally as an air-superiority fighter and is manufactured by a consortium of Airbus, BAE Systems and Leonardo ...

. Maurizio Cheli has more than 380 hours of space activity and more than 4500 flying hours on more than 50 different aircraft types. He is married to fellow former ESA astronaut

Marianne Merchez Marianne Merchez (born 25 October 1960 in Uccle) is a Belgian medical doctor, doctor from the Université catholique de Louvain, Catholic University of Louvain and a former European Astronaut Corps, European Space Agency astronaut. She is certif ...

. During the 2009

Torino Turin ( , Piedmontese: ; it, Torino ) is a city and an important business and cultural centre in Northern Italy. It is the capital city of Piedmont and of the Metropolitan City of Turin, and was the first Italian capital from 1861 to 1865. T ...

World Air Games The FAI World Air Games (WAG) is an international air sports event organized by Fédération Aéronautique Internationale (World Air Sports Federation - FAI), inspired by the Olympic Games. Competitions #Aerobatics #Aeromodeling # Air racing #Bal ...

, on 12 June 2009 the SkySpark experimental aircraft piloted by Cheli logged the speed world record for its class, powered by an electric engine designed by the DigiSky, an aviation technologies firm founded by Cheli himself in 2005.

External links

Official web site Mauriziocheli.com

ESA profile page

{{DEFAULTSORT:Cheli, Maurizio 1959 births Living people People from Modena Italian astronauts University of Houston alumni Sapienza University of Rome alumni Recipients of the Medal of Aeronautic Valor Space Shuttle program astronauts