In 1983 Clervoy was seconded from the Délégation Générale pour L'Armement to CNES where he works on autopilot systems for various projects such as the earth observation satelliteSPOT, the optical inter-satellite space link STAR, or the comet probe VEGA. 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 Toulouse. 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, on the Soyuz and Mir systems. In 1992, he joined the Astronaut Corps of the European Space Agency at the European Astronaut Center EAC in Cologne. In August 1992 Clervoy was detached to the NASA Johnson Space Center/ 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 and as robotics display design lead for Shuttle and ISS. After his third spaceflight, he was assigned as the International Space Station 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 ESA project in Les Mureaux. 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, the Atmospheric Laboratory for Applications and Science-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 was NASA's sixth Shuttle mission to rendezvous and dock with the Russian Space Station Mir. 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 primary objectives was the repair of the Hubble space telescope, 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 in Cologne, 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 CNES 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.
Jean-François Clervoy is the author of the book "Histoire d'Espace" relating his third mission towards the Hubblespace telescope. He is also the co-author of the works: "Voler en apesanteur" and "Embarquer dès demain pour l'espace", "Dans les bars des bouts du monde" and "La Diva, le Président et autres face-à-face", "Vox confidential", "Histoire de la conquête spatiale".
Patent
Jean-François filed an international patent for the functions of the wrist watch ‘Speedmaster Skywalker X-33’ produced by Omega, tested and qualified by ESA.
