Philippe Perrin. Photo: NASA

Astronaut Philippe Perrin of CNES (Centre National D'Etudes Spatiales, the French Space Agency), a lieutenant colonel in the French Air Force, has been named to the crew for the STS-111/Utilization Flight-2, scheduled for launch early in 2002. The STS-111 mission will carry experiment and resupply equipment in the Multipurpose Logistics Module to the International Space Station and install final hardware for the Canadian Mobile Servicing System.

Perrin is the first to be named to this crew; other crewmembers will be assigned at a later date. This will be Perrin's first flight into space.

After selection by the French Space Agency, Perrin reported to NASA's Johnson Space Center, Houston, TX, for astronaut training in 1996. Prior to becoming an astronaut, his military career included service as a high-performance jet-aircraft test pilot in the French Air Force, where he flew the Mirage F1 and was the Chief Pilot Deputy in charge of the development of the Mirage 2000-5. He has logged over 2,500 flying hours in over 30 different aircraft. Perrin received an engineering degree from Ecole Polytechnique in Paris in 1985.