Donald Roy PETTIT

ISS Flight Engineer
Soyuz TMA Flight Engineer
NASA Astronaut

DATA AND PLACE OF BIRTH: April 20, 1955, Silverton, Oregon.

EDUCATION: Graduated from Silverton Union High School, Silverton, Oregon, in 1973; received a bachelor of science degree in chemical engineering from Oregon State University in 1978; and a doctorate in chemical engineering from the University of Arizona in 1983.

FAMILY STATUS: Married. Two children.

HOBBIES: Photography and swimming.

WORK EXPERIENCE: Staff scientist at Los Alamos National Laboratory, Los Alamos, New Mexico from 1984-1996. Projects included reduced gravity fluid flow and materials processing experiments on board the NASA KC-135 airplane, atmospheric spectroscopy measurements on noctolucent clouds seeded from sounding rockets, volcano fumarole gas sampling on active volcanos, and problems in detonation physics applied to weapon systems. He was a member of the group that studied the technology needed to return to the moon and explore Mars (1990), and the Space Station Freedom Redesign Team (1993).
Selected by NASA in April 1996, he reported to the Johnson Space Center in August 1996. Having completed two years of training, he is a qualified mission specialist. He was assigned technical duties in the Astronaut Office Computer Support Branch. Initially assigned as a backup crewmember, he has now been assigned to the crew of Expedition-6.

August 2002
Based on materials of Lindon B. Johnson Space Center, NASA, USA.