Maurizio Cheli

  • STS -75 ( 1996)

Maurizio Cheli ( born May 4, 1959 in Modena, Emilia- Romagna, Italy ) is an Italian air force officer and a former astronaut.

Life

Cheli visited upon completion of a grammar school, the Italian Air Force Academy in Pozzuoli, near Naples, where he graduated in 1982 as the second best course participants. In the following years he flew as a pilot combat aircraft of the type F -104 " Starfighter ". In 1988, he became a test pilot after he had the Empire Test Pilot School completed in British Boscombe Down as a course Bester.

Astronauts activity

From 1992 Cheli worked for ESA, which sent him to the Johnson Space Center in Houston, where he was trained as an astronaut. At the University of Houston Cheli studied until 1994, air and space technology. In 1996 he took part as a mission specialist along with Umberto Guidoni ( payload specialist ) on mission STS -75, on, among other things, an Italian tethered satellite was tested.

According to the ESA

After this mission Cheli returned to Italy and since then has worked for the company Alenia Aeronautica as a test pilot. In this role, he also tested the first Italian Euro Fighter. Cheli brought it before on a total of 380 hours in space and more than 5,000 flight hours in more than 50 different types of aircraft.

On 11 December 2003 Cheli denied in Grosseto with a Euro Fighter a drag race against Michael Schumacher in Formula 1 cars Ferrari F- 2003 GA and eventually could be divided into three different long runs prevail against the Germans.

Cheli is married to the former Belgian astronaut Marianne Merchez, which belonged to the astronaut corps of the ESA 1992-1995.

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