Jean-François André Clervoy (; born 19 November 1958) is a French

engineer Engineers, as practitioners of engineering, are professionals who Invention, invent, design, build, maintain and test machines, complex systems, structures, gadgets and materials. They aim to fulfill functional objectives and requirements while ...

and a

CNES CNES () is the French national space agency. Headquartered in central Paris, the agency is overseen by the ministries of the Armed Forces, Economy and Finance and Higher Education, Research and Innovation. It operates from the Toulouse Spac ...

and ESA

astronaut An astronaut (from the Ancient Greek (), meaning 'star', and (), meaning 'sailor') is a person trained, equipped, and deployed by a List of human spaceflight programs, human spaceflight program to serve as a commander or crew member of a spa ...

. He is a veteran of three

NASA The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA ) is an independent agencies of the United States government, independent agency of the federal government of the United States, US federal government responsible for the United States ...

Space Shuttle The Space Shuttle is a retired, partially reusable launch system, 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. ...

missions.

Early life and education

Clervoy was born 19 November 1958 in Longeville-lès-Metz, France, the son of Mireille Lemonde and Jean Clervoy, a former

French Air Force The French Air and Space Force (, , ) is the air force, air and space force of the French Armed Forces. Formed in 1909 as the ("Aeronautical Service"), a service arm of the French Army, it became an independent military branch in 1934 as the Fr ...

pilot. From an early age, he took an interest in space exploration and dreamt of becoming an astronaut: While born in the French region of Lorraine, Clervoy considers

Toulouse Toulouse (, ; ; ) is a city in southern France, the Prefectures in France, prefecture of the Haute-Garonne department and of the Occitania (administrative region), Occitania region. The city is on the banks of the Garonne, River Garonne, from ...

to be his adopted hometown. He has a twin brother, Patrick Clervoy, a military psychiatrist. He received his baccalauréat from Collège Militaire de Saint-Cyr-l'École in 1976; he passed Math. Sup. and Math. Spé. M' at Prytanée Militaire, La Flèche in 1978. He graduated from

École Polytechnique (, ; also known as Polytechnique or l'X ) is a ''grande école'' located in Palaiseau, France. It specializes in science and engineering and is a founding member of the Polytechnic Institute of Paris. The school was founded in 1794 by mat ...

Paris Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, largest city of France. With an estimated population of 2,048,472 residents in January 2025 in an area of more than , Paris is the List of ci ...

, in 1981. He then became a member of the Corps of Armament. He graduated from

École nationale supérieure de l'aéronautique et de l'espace École or Ecole may refer to: * an elementary school in the French educational stages normally followed by secondary education establishments (collège and lycée) * École (river), a tributary of the Seine flowing in région Île-de-France * Éco ...

, Toulouse, in 1983; he graduated as a Flight Test Engineer from École du personnel navigant d'essais et de réception,

Istres Istres (; Occitan: Istre) is a commune in southern France, some 60 km (38 mi) northwest of Marseille. It is in the Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur region, in the Bouches-du-Rhône department, of which it is a subprefecture. Location I ...

, in 1987.

Experience

In 1983 Clervoy was seconded from the

Direction générale de l'armement The Direction générale de l'armement (, , abbr. DGA), established in 1961, is the French Government defence procurement and technology agency, responsible within the Ministry of Armed Forces for project management, development, and purchase of ...

(DGA) to

(French Space Agency) where he works on autopilot systems for various projects such as the earth observation satellite

SPOT Spot or SPOT may refer to: Places * Spot, North Carolina, a community in the United States * The Spot, New South Wales, a locality in Sydney, Australia * South Pole Traverse, sometimes called the South Pole Overland Traverse People * Spot Coll ...

, the optical inter-satellite space link STAR, or the comet probe

VEGA Vega is the brightest star in the northern constellation of Lyra. It has the Bayer designation α Lyrae, which is Latinised to Alpha Lyrae and abbreviated Alpha Lyr or α Lyr. This star is relatively close at only from the Sun, and ...

. Clervoy is Ingénieur Général de l'Armement in the Corps of Armament at the DGA. He was selected in the second group of French astronauts in 1985 and started intensive Russian language training. From 1987 until 1992 he directed the parabolic flight program at the Flight Test Center, Brétigny-sur-Orge and provided technical support to the European human space program within the ESA Hermes crew office in

. From 1983 to 1987, Clervoy was also a lecturer in signal processing and general mechanics at the École nationale supérieure de l'aéronautique et de l'espace, Toulouse. In 1991, he trained in Star City,

Moscow Moscow is the Capital city, capital and List of cities and towns in Russia by population, largest city of Russia, standing on the Moskva (river), Moskva River in Central Russia. It has a population estimated at over 13 million residents with ...

, on the

Soyuz Soyuz is a transliteration of the Cyrillic text Союз (Russian language, Russian and Ukrainian language, Ukrainian, 'Union'). It can refer to any union, such as a trade union (''profsoyuz'') or the Soviet Union, Union of Soviet Socialist Republi ...

and

Mir ''Mir'' (, ; ) was a space station operated in low Earth orbit from 1986 to 2001, first by the Soviet Union and later by the Russia, Russian Federation. ''Mir'' was the first modular space station and was assembled in orbit from 1986 to ...

systems. In 1992, he joined the Astronaut Corps of the

European Space Agency The European Space Agency (ESA) is a 23-member International organization, international organization devoted to space exploration. With its headquarters in Paris and a staff of around 2,547 people globally as of 2023, ESA was founded in 1975 ...

(ESA) at the European Astronaut Center EAC in Cologne. In August 1992 Clervoy was detached to the

NASA Johnson Space Center The Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center (JSC) is NASA's center for human spaceflight in Houston, Texas (originally named the Manned Spacecraft Center), where human spaceflight training, research, and flight control are conducted. It was renamed in ...

/ Houston to gain the Space Shuttle mission specialist qualifications. In between his space flights, Clervoy was assigned as flight software verification lead in the Shuttle Avionics Integration Laboratory (SAIL) and as robotics display design lead for Shuttle and ISS. After his third spaceflight, he was assigned as the

International Space Station The International Space Station (ISS) is a large space station that was Assembly of the International Space Station, assembled and is maintained in low Earth orbit by a collaboration of five space agencies and their contractors: NASA (United ...

display integration lead in the NASA-JSC Astronaut Office. He flew twice aboard and once aboard or a total of 675 hours in space. Due to the difficulty that American astronauts had in pronouncing his name, Clervoy was nicknamed "Billy Bob." From 2001 through 2008, he was assigned Senior Advisor Astronaut of the

Automated Transfer Vehicle The Automated Transfer Vehicle, originally Ariane Transfer Vehicle or ATV, was an expendable automated cargo spacecraft, cargo spacecraft developed by the European Space Agency (ESA), used for space cargo transport in 2008–2015. The ATV desi ...

ESA project in Les Mureaux (France). In 2008, he was also appointed member of the selection board for the new ESA astronaut class. Clervoy holds military and civilian parachuting licenses, military and civilian scuba-diving licenses, and private pilot license.

Spaceflight experience

* STS-66 (November 3 –14, 1994), the Atmospheric Laboratory for Applications and Science-3 (ATLAS-3) mission was part of an ongoing program to determine the Earth's energy balance and atmospheric change over an eleven-year solar cycle. Clervoy used the robotic arm to deploy the CRISTA-SPAS atmospheric research satellite 20 hours after lift-off, and logged 262 hours and 34 minutes in space and 175 earth orbits. * STS-84 (May 15 – 24, 1997) was

's sixth Shuttle mission to rendezvous and dock with the Russian Space Station

. Assigned as payload commander, Clervoy's primary tasks were the management of more than 20 experiments, the operation of the docking system and the double module SPACEHAB, and the transfer of 4 tons of equipment between ''Atlantis'' and Mir. He was also trained as a contingency spacewalker on this mission. He logged 221 hours and 20 minutes in space and 144 earth orbits. *

STS-103 STS-103, the 96th launch of the Space Shuttle and the 27th launch of Space Shuttle ''Space Shuttle Discovery, Discovery'', was a Hubble Space Telescope servicing mission. It launched from Kennedy Space Center, Florida, on 19 December 1999 and ...

(December 19 – 27, 1999) primary objectives was the repair of the

Hubble space telescope The Hubble Space Telescope (HST or Hubble) is a space telescope that was launched into low Earth orbit in 1990 and remains in operation. It was not the Orbiting Solar Observatory, first space telescope, but it is one of the largest and most ...

, which was put to sleep after successive failures of its gyroscopes, necessary to meet the telescope's very precise pointing requirements. Clervoy was the flight engineer for ascent, space rendezvous and entry. He used the robotic arm to capture and deploy the telescope, and to maneuver his crew mates during each of their three spacewalks each lasting more than eight hours. He logged 191 hours and 11 minutes in space and 120 Earth orbits.

Current assignment

Clervoy is a member of ESA’s European Astronaut Corps, based at the

European Astronaut Centre The European Astronaut Centre (EAC) (German: Europäisches Astronautenzentrum, French: Centre des astronautes européens), is an establishment of the European Space Agency and home of the European Astronaut Corps. It is near to Cologne, Germany, ...

Cologne Cologne ( ; ; ) is the largest city of the States of Germany, German state of North Rhine-Westphalia and the List of cities in Germany by population, fourth-most populous city of Germany with nearly 1.1 million inhabitants in the city pr ...

, Germany. As part of his ESA collateral duties, Clervoy provides support to the human spaceflight programme, the external relations department and the sustainable development office. He is also Chairman and strategy manager of Novespace, a subsidiary of French space agency

in charge of the parabolic flight programme based on the A310 Zero-G aircraft in Bordeaux-Mérignac, France.

Personal life

He is married to Laurence Boulanger and they have two children. Clervoy enjoys racquet sports, skill games, canyoning, skiing, and flying activities such as boomerang, frisbee, kites.

Organisations

Member,

Association of Space Explorers Association may refer to: *Club (organization), an association of two or more people united by a common interest or goal *Trade association, an organization founded and funded by businesses that operate in a specific industry *Voluntary associatio ...

(ASE). Distinguished member, French Aeronautics and Astronautics Association (3AF). Member, Air and Space Academy (ANAE). Member, International Academy of Astronautics (IAA). Member,

American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics The American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA) is a professional society for the field of aerospace engineering Aerospace engineering is the primary field of engineering concerned with the development of aircraft and spacecra ...

(AIAA). Ambassador of the

World Ocean Network The World Ocean Network (Réseau Océan Mondial) is an international non-profit association of organizations to promote the sustainable use of the oceans. One of its motto is "Caring for the Blue Planet, you can make a difference!" It was establ ...

. Patron of the marine life preservation non-profit association 'Te mana o te moana' in

French Polynesia French Polynesia ( ; ; ) is an overseas collectivity of France and its sole #Governance, overseas country. It comprises 121 geographically dispersed islands and atolls stretching over more than in the Pacific Ocean, South Pacific Ocean. The t ...

. JF Clervoy is also the ESA representative for the ocean exploration ‘ SeaOrbiter’ project.

Special honours

* Officer of the

Legion of Honor The National Order of the Legion of Honour ( ), formerly the Imperial Order of the Legion of Honour (), is the highest and most prestigious French national order of merit, both military and civil. Currently consisting of five classes, it was ...

* Knight of the National Order of Merit *

NASA Space Flight Medal The NASA Space Flight Medal is a decoration of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. According to its statutes, it is awarded "for significant achievement or service during individual participation as a civilian or military astronau ...

s (three) *

NASA Exceptional Service Medal The NASA Exceptional Service Medal is an award granted to U.S. government employees for significant sustained performance characterized by unusual initiative or creative ability that clearly demonstrates substantial improvement in engineering, a ...

s (two) * Medal of Aeronautics * Komarov and Koroliev Awards from the

Fédération Aéronautique Internationale The World Air Sports Federation (; FAI) is the world governing body for air sports, and also stewards definitions regarding human spaceflight. It was founded on 14 October 1905, and is headquartered in Lausanne, Switzerland. It maintains worl ...

Tributes

* A middle school is named after him in Franconville (

Val-d'Oise Val-d'Oise (, "Vale of the Oise") is a department in the Île-de-France region, Northern France. It was created in 1968 following the split of the Seine-et-Oise department. In 2019, Val-d'Oise had a population of 1,249,674.< ...

) where he completed part of his schooling * A media library is named after him at Longeville-lès-Metz (

Moselle The Moselle ( , ; ; ) is a river that rises in the Vosges mountains and flows through north-eastern France and Luxembourg to western Germany. It is a bank (geography), left bank tributary of the Rhine, which it joins at Koblenz. A sm ...

) * The square of

Sercy Sercy () is a commune in the Saône-et-Loire department in the region of Bourgogne-Franche-Comté in eastern France. Geography The Grosne flows north through the eastern part of the commune. See also *Communes of the Saône-et-Loire departmen ...

( Saone-et-Loire) is named after him

Publications

Jean-François Clervoy is the author of the book "Histoire(s) d'Espace" relating his third mission towards the Hubble space telescope. He is also the co-author of the works: "Voler en apesanteur" and "Embarquer dès demain pour l'espace" (Ed. Vuibert), "Dans les bars des bouts du monde" and "La Diva, le Président et autres face-à-face" (Ed. L'Elocoquent), "Vox confidential" (Ed. Michel Lafon), "Histoire de la conquête spatiale" (Ed. Vuibert).

Patent

Jean-François filed an international patent for the functions of the wrist watch ‘Speedmaster Skywalker X-33’ produced by

Omega Omega (, ; uppercase Ω, lowercase ω; Ancient Greek ὦ, later ὦ μέγα, Modern Greek ωμέγα) is the twenty-fourth and last letter in the Greek alphabet. In the Greek numerals, Greek numeric system/isopsephy (gematria), it has a value ...

, tested and qualified by ESA.

References

External links

ESA profile page

Novespace
{{DEFAULTSORT:Clervoy, Jean-Francois 1958 births Living people French spationauts ESA astronauts École Polytechnique alumni French aerospace engineers Supaéro alumni Corps de l'armement French twins Engineers from Toulouse Officers of the Legion of Honour Knights of the Ordre national du Mérite Space program of France Space Shuttle program astronauts Mir crew members CNES personnel