Jeffrey A. Hoffman - NASA Experience

NASA Experience

Selected by NASA in January 1978, Hoffman became an astronaut in August 1979. During preparations for the Shuttle Orbital Flight Tests, he worked in the Flight Simulation Laboratory at Downey, California, testing guidance, navigation and flight control systems. He worked with the orbital maneuvering and reaction control systems, with Shuttle navigation, with crew training, and with the development of satellite deployment procedures. Dr. Hoffman served as a support crewmember for STS-5 and as a CAPCOM (spacecraft communicator) for the STS-8 and STS-82 missions. Hoffman has been the Astronaut Office Payload Safety Representative. He also worked on EVA, including the development of a high-pressure spacesuit, and preparations for the assembly of the Space Station. Dr. Hoffman was a co-founder of the Astronaut Office Science Support Group. In 1996 he led the Payload and Habitability Branch of the Astronaut Office.

Hoffman left the astronaut program in July 1997 to become NASA's European Representative in Paris, where he served until August 2001. His principle duties were to keep NASA and NASA’s European partners informed about each other’s activities, try to resolve problems in US-European cooperative space projects, search for new areas of US-European space cooperation, and represent NASA in European media. In August 2001, Dr. Hoffman was seconded by NASA to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he is a Professor in the Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics. He is engaged in several research projects using the International Space Station and teaches courses on space operations and design.