Mary Louise Cleave (born February 5, 1947) is an American

engineer Engineers, as practitioners of engineering, are professionals who invent, design, analyze, build and test machines, complex systems, structures, gadgets and materials to fulfill functional objectives and requirements while considering the l ...

and a former

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 ...

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 ...

. She also served from 2004 to 2007 as

Associate Administrator for the

Science Mission Directorate The Science Mission Directorate (SMD) of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) engages the United States’ science community, sponsors scientific research, and develops and deploys satellites and probes in collaboration with NAS ...

Early life

Cleave was born in

Southampton, New York Southampton, officially the Town of Southampton, is a town in southeastern Suffolk County, New York, partly on the South Fork of Long Island. As of the 2020 U.S. census, the town had a population of 69,036. Southampton is included in the stret ...

as the daughter of Howard Cleave and Barbara Cleave, both teachers. She grew up in

Great Neck, New York Great Neck is a region on Long Island, New York, that covers a peninsula on the North Shore (Long Island), North Shore and includes nine villages, among them Great Neck (village), New York, Great Neck, Great Neck Estates, New York, Great Neck Es ...

, and has an older (Trudy Carter) and a younger sister (Barbara "Bobbie" Cleave Bosworth).

Education

In 1965 Cleave graduated from

Great Neck North High School John L. Miller Great Neck North High School or simply "Great Neck North," is a public high school, including grades 9 through 12, in the village of Great Neck, New York, operated by the Great Neck School District. As of the 2018–19 school year ...

. In 1969 she received a bachelor of science degree in Biological Sciences from

Colorado State University Colorado State University (Colorado State or CSU) is a public land-grant research university in Fort Collins, Colorado. It is the flagship university of the Colorado State University System. Colorado State University is classified among "R1: ...

, and in 1975 a master of science in Microbial Ecology from

Utah State University Utah State University (USU or Utah State) is a public land-grant research university in Logan, Utah. It is accredited by the Northwest Commission on Colleges and Universities. With nearly 20,000 students living on or near campus, USU is Utah's ...

. In 1979 she received a doctorate in Civil and Environmental Engineering from Utah State University.

Academic career

Cleave held graduate research, research phycologist, and research engineer assignments in the Ecology Center and the Utah Water Research Laboratory at Utah State University from September 1971 to June 1980. Her work included research on the productivity of the algal component of cold desert soil crusts in the

Great Basin Desert The Great Basin Desert is part of the Great Basin between the Sierra Nevada and the Wasatch Range. The desert is a geographical region that largely overlaps the Great Basin shrub steppe defined by the World Wildlife Fund, and the Central Basin a ...

south of

Snowville, Utah Snowville is a town in Box Elder County, Utah, United States. The population was 167 at the 2010 census. Geography Snowville is located at an elevation of . According to the United States Census Bureau, the town has a total area of , all land. ...

; algal removal with intermittent sand filtration and prediction of minimum river flow necessary to maintain certain game fish; the effects of increased salinity and oil shale

leachates A leachate is any liquid that, in the course of passing through matter, extracts soluble or suspended solids, or any other component of the material through which it has passed. Leachate is a widely used term in the environmental sciences whe ...

freshwater phytoplankton Freshwater phytoplankton is the phytoplankton occurring in freshwater ecosystems. It can be distinguished between limnoplankton (lake phytoplankton), heleoplankton (phytoplankton in ponds), and potamoplankton (river phytoplankton). They differ in s ...

productivity; development of the Surface Impoundment Assessment document and computer program (FORTRAN) for current and future processing of data from surface impoundments in

Utah Utah ( , ) is a state in the Mountain West subregion of the Western United States. Utah is a landlocked U.S. state bordered to its east by Colorado, to its northeast by Wyoming, to its north by Idaho, to its south by Arizona, and to it ...

; and design and implementation of an algal bioassay center and a workshop for bioassay techniques for the Intermountain West.

NASA career

Cleave was selected as an astronaut in May 1980. Her technical assignments have included: flight software verification in the Shuttle Avionics Integration Laboratory (SAIL);

CAPCOM is a Japanese video game developer and video game publisher, publisher. It has created a number of List of best-selling video game franchises, multi-million-selling game franchises, with its most commercially successful being ''Resident Evil' ...

on five

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 ...

flights; Malfunctions Procedures Book; Crew Equipment Design. A veteran of two space flights, Cleave logged a total of 10 days, 22 hours, 02 minutes, 24 seconds in space,

orbit In celestial mechanics, an orbit is the curved trajectory of an object such as the trajectory of a planet around a star, or of a natural satellite around a planet, or of an artificial satellite around an object or position in space such as a p ...

ed the

Earth Earth is the third planet from the Sun and the only astronomical object known to harbor life. While large volumes of water can be found throughout the Solar System, only Earth sustains liquid surface water. About 71% of Earth's surfa ...

172 times and traveled 3.94 million miles. She was a mission specialist on

STS-61-B STS-61-B was NASA's 23rd Space Shuttle mission, and its second using Space Shuttle ''Atlantis''. The shuttle was launched from Kennedy Space Center, Florida, on November 26, 1985. During STS-61-B, the shuttle crew deployed three communications ...

(November 26 to December 3, 1985) and

STS-30 STS-30 was the 29th NASA Space Shuttle mission and the fourth mission for Space Shuttle ''Atlantis''. It was the fourth shuttle launch since the Challenger disaster and the first shuttle mission since the disaster to have a female astronaut on ...

(May 4–8, 1989). Cleave left JSC in May 1991 to join

Goddard Space Flight Center The Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC) is a major NASA space research laboratory located approximately northeast of Washington, D.C. in Greenbelt, Maryland, United States. Established on May 1, 1959 as NASA's first space flight center, GSFC empl ...

Greenbelt, Maryland Greenbelt is a city in Prince George's County, Maryland, United States, and a suburb of Washington, D.C. At the 2020 census, the population was 24,921. Greenbelt is the first and the largest of the three experimental and controversial New Deal ...

. She worked in the Laboratory for Hydrospheric Processes as the Project Manager for SeaWiFS (Sea-viewing, Wide-Field-of-view-Sensor), an ocean color sensor which is monitoring vegetation globally. Cleave served as Associate Administrator, Science Mission Directorate, NASA Headquarters,

Washington, D.C. ) , image_skyline = , image_caption = Clockwise from top left: the Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial on the National Mall, United States Capitol, Logan Circle, Jefferson Memorial, White House, Adams Morgan, ...

She stepped down from that position in April 2007 and was succeeded by Dr.

Alan Stern Sol Alan Stern (born November 22, 1957) is an American engineer and planetary scientist. He is the principal investigator of the ''New Horizons'' mission to Pluto and the Chief Scientist at Moon Express. Stern has been involved in 24 suborbital ...

Spaceflight experience

Atlantis Atlantis ( grc, Ἀτλαντὶς νῆσος, , island of Atlas (mythology), Atlas) is a fictional island mentioned in an allegory on the hubris of nations in Plato's works ''Timaeus (dialogue), Timaeus'' and ''Critias (dialogue), Critias'' ...

'' (Nov 26 to December 3, 1985) launched at night from the

Kennedy Space Center The John F. Kennedy Space Center (KSC, originally known as the NASA Launch Operations Center), located on Merritt Island, Florida, is one of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration's (NASA) ten field centers. Since December 1968 ...

Florida Florida is a state located in the Southeastern region of the United States. Florida is bordered to the west by the Gulf of Mexico, to the northwest by Alabama, to the north by Georgia, to the east by the Bahamas and Atlantic Ocean, and to ...

, and returned to land on Runway 22 at

Edwards Air Force Base Edwards Air Force Base (AFB) is a United States Air Force installation in California. Most of the base sits in Kern County, but its eastern end is in San Bernardino County and a southern arm is in Los Angeles County. The hub of the base is E ...

California California is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States, located along the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the List of states and territori ...

. During the mission, the crew deployed the MORELOS-B, AUSSAT II, and SATCOM K-2 communications satellites, conducted 2 six-hour spacewalks to demonstrate space station construction techniques with the

EASE/ACCESS The Experimental Assembly of Structures in EVA and the Assembly Concept for Construction of Erectable Space Structures, or EASE/ACCESS, were a pair of space shuttle flight experiments that were performed on STS-61-B, on November 29 and December 1 ...

experiments, operated the Continuous Flow Electrophoresis (CFES) experiment for

McDonnell Douglas McDonnell Douglas was a major American aerospace manufacturing corporation and defense contractor, formed by the merger of McDonnell Aircraft and the Douglas Aircraft Company in 1967. Between then and its own merger with Boeing in 1997, it produ ...

and a Getaway Special (GAS) container for Telesat, Canada, conducted several Mexican Payload Specialist Experiments for the

Mexican Government The Federal government of Mexico (alternately known as the Government of the Republic or ' or ') is the national government of the United Mexican States, the central government established by its constitution to share sovereignty over the republi ...

, and tested the Orbiter Experiments Digital Autopilot (OEX DAP). This was the heaviest payload weight carried to orbit by the Space Shuttle to date. Mission duration was 165 hours, 4 minutes, 49 seconds.

on Space Shuttle ''Atlantis'' (May 4–8, 1989) was a four-day mission during which the crew successfully deployed the ''

Magellan Ferdinand Magellan ( or ; pt, Fernão de Magalhães, ; es, link=no, Fernando de Magallanes, ; 4 February 1480 – 27 April 1521) was a Portuguese people, Portuguese explorer. He is best known for having planned and led the Magellan expeditio ...

'' Venus-exploration

spacecraft A spacecraft is a vehicle or machine designed to fly in outer space. A type of artificial satellite, spacecraft are used for a variety of purposes, including communications, Earth observation, meteorology, navigation, space colonization, p ...

, the first U.S. planetary science mission launched since 1978, and the first planetary probe to be deployed from the Shuttle. ''Magellan'' arrived at

Venus Venus is the second planet from the Sun. It is sometimes called Earth's "sister" or "twin" planet as it is almost as large and has a similar composition. As an interior planet to Earth, Venus (like Mercury) appears in Earth's sky never fa ...

in August 1990 and radar-mapped over 95% of the surface of Venus. ''Magellan'' has been one of NASA's most successful scientific missions providing valuable information about the Venusian atmosphere and

magnetic field A magnetic field is a vector field that describes the magnetic influence on moving electric charges, electric currents, and magnetic materials. A moving charge in a magnetic field experiences a force perpendicular to its own velocity and to ...

. In addition, the crew also worked on secondary payloads involving Indium crystal growth, electrical storm, and Earth observation studies. Mission duration was 96 hours, 57 minutes, 35 seconds. On January 18, 2009, as the inaugural speaker in the Heyden Distinguished Lecture Series, Cleave told students and others at Georgetown University about her education and career and showed an original film of her shuttle mission in 1985.

Organizations

* Society for Professional Engineers *

Association of Space Explorers The Association of Space Explorers is a non-profit organization with a membership composed of people who have completed at least one Earth orbit in space (above , as defined by the Fédération Aéronautique Internationale. It was founded in 1985, ...

* Women in Aerospace *

Tri Beta Beta Beta Beta ( or TriBeta), is a collegiate honor society and academic fraternity for students of the biological sciences. It was founded in 1922 at Oklahoma City University by Dr. Frank G. Brooks and a group of his students. As of 2012, it has ...

Beta Beta Beta Beta Beta Beta ( or TriBeta), is a collegiate honor society and academic fraternity for students of the biological sciences. It was founded in 1922 at Oklahoma City University by Dr. Frank G. Brooks and a group of his students. As of 2012, it has ...

Sigma Xi Sigma Xi, The Scientific Research Honor Society () is a highly prestigious, non-profit honor society for scientists and engineers. Sigma Xi was founded at Cornell University by a junior faculty member and a small group of graduate students in 1886 ...

Tau Beta Pi The Tau Beta Pi Association (commonly Tau Beta Pi, , or TBP) is the oldest engineering honor society and the second oldest collegiate honor society in the United States. It honors engineering students in American universities who have shown a ...

References

External links

*
Spacefacts biography of Mary L. Cleave
{{DEFAULTSORT:Cleave, Mary L. 1947 births Living people Women astronauts American women engineers Utah State University alumni People from Southampton (town), New York NASA civilian astronauts People from Great Neck, New York Beta Beta Beta Great Neck North High School alumni Space Shuttle program astronauts