Jean-Jacques Favier (; 13 April 1949 – 19 March 2023) was a German-born French engineer and a CNES astronaut who flew aboard the STS-78 NASA Space Shuttle mission in 1996. Favier was due to fly aboard the doomed Columbia mission in 2003 (STS-107), but later opted out of the mission. Jean-Jacques Favier was deputy director for space technology and deputy director for advanced concepts and strategy at CNES, director of the Solidification Laboratory at the French Atomic Energy Commission and research program director at the International Space University.

Personal life and death

Born in Kehl, Germany, he married Michèle Jean. They had four children. He enjoyed skiing, tennis, wind-surfing, and archaeology.

Favier died on 19 March 2023, in Albi at the age of 73.

Education

  • Attended primary and secondary schools in Strasbourg, France
  • 1971: Received an engineering degree from the INPG-ENSEEG (Grenoble Institute of Technology).
  • 1977: Earned a PhD in engineering from the École des mines de Paris
  • 1977: Earned a PhD in metallurgy and physics from the University of Grenoble

Organisations

  • Research Engineer, Commissariat à l'énergie atomique (CEA), 1976-1979
  • Head Solidification Group 1970-1986
  • Head of Laboratory 1986-1989
  • Head Solidification and Crystal Growth Service, 1989 to 1993
  • Cons. European Space Agency (ESA)
  • Centre National D’Etudes Spatiales (CNES), Paris 1983 to present
  • spationaut Candidate CNES, Paris 1985 to present
  • Member of Space Station User Panel of ESA.

Awards and honours

  • Recipient Zellidja Association 2nd prize, French Academy Literature 1970, E. Brun Price Award French Academy Sciences
  • Member of International Organization of Crystal Growth
  • Member of American Association of Crystal Growth
  • Societe Française de Metallurgie
  • Groupe Français de Croissance Cristalline (Committee chairman)
  • Visiting professor at University of Alabama in Huntsville (UAH) (1994–95)
  • Member of the Space Science Committee of the European Science Foundation (ESF)
  • Several patents on crystal growth processes, furnaces and in situ diagnosis
  • French Legion of Honour
  • Spacefacts biography of Jean-Jacques Favier
  • Earth from Space: Interactive Astronaut Panel, Michael Barratt, Jean-Jacques Favier, Thomas Marshburn, Donald A. Thomas, the 13th Ilan Ramon International Space Conference, February 2018

References