Claude Nicollier

Claude Nicollier, born in Vevey, Switzerland, in 1944, is a Professor in aerospace engineering at the EPFL, the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne, Switzerland. He graduated from the University of Lausanne in 1970 (Bachelor of Science in physics) and the University of Geneva in 1975 (Master of Science in astrophysics). He also graduated as a Swiss Air Force pilot in 1966, an airline pilot in 1974 and a test pilot in 1988. He was a member of the first group of European Space Agency (ESA) astronauts selected in 1978. He was then detached to the NASA Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas, to train as a crewmember for Space Shuttle missions. He was assigned as a Mission Specialist on four Space Shuttle flights, including the first and the third missions to service the Hubble Space Telescope on orbit. He spent more than 1000 hours in space, and performed a spacewalk on this last mission in December 1999 to install new equipment on the orbiting observatory. He is a recipient of Honorary Doctorates from EPFL, and the Universities of Geneva and Basel.