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Julie Payette (born October 20, 1963 in
Montreal|Montréal, Quebec|Québec) is an
astronaut with the Canadian Space Agency (CSA) who
currently works primarily with the United States's
National Aeronautics and Space Administration
(NASA).

==Education==

Payette attended elementary and secondary schools
in Montréal. In 1982 she completed an
International Baccalaureate Diploma at the United
World International College of the Atlantic in
South Wales, United Kingdom|UK. She later received
a bachelor of engineering from McGill University
in 1986 and a Master of applied science from the
University of Toronto in 1990. She is fluent in
French_language|French and
English_language|English and speaks conversational
Spanish language|Spanish, Italian
language|Italian, German language|German and
Russian language|Russian.

==Career==

Between 1986 and 1988, Payette worked as a system
engineering|engineer for IBM Canada's Science
Engineering division. From 1988 to 1990, as a
graduate student at the University of Toronto, she
was involved in a high-performance computer
architecture project and worked as a teaching
assistant. At the beginning of 1991, Payette
joined the Communications and science department
of the IBM Research Laboratory in ZĂĽrich,
Switzerland, for a one year visiting scientist
appointment. When she returned to Canada, in
January 1992, she joined the Speech Research Group
of Bell-Northern research in Montréal where she
was responsible for a project in telephone speech
understanding using computer Speech
recognition|voice recognition.

Payette was selected by the Canadian Space Agency
(CSA) as one of four astronauts from a field of
5,330 applicants in June 1992. After undergoing
basic training in Canada, she worked as a
technical advisor for the Mobile Servicing System,
an advanced robotics system and Canada’s
contribution to the International Space Station.
In 1993, Payette established the Human-Computer
Interaction Group at the Canadian Astronaut
Program and served as a technical specialist on
the NATO International Research Study Group on
speech processing.

In preparation for a space assignment, Payette
obtained her commercial Aviator|pilot license and
logged 120 hours as a research operator on board
reduced gravity aircraft. In April 1996, Payette
was certified as a one-atmosphere deep sea diving
suit operator. Payette obtained her captaincy on
the Canadair CT-114 Tutor|CT-114 Tutor military
jet at Canadian Forces Base (CFB) Moose Jaw, in
Saskatchewan in February 1996. She obtained her
military instrument rating in 1997. Payette has
logged more than 900 hours of flight time,
including 450 hours on high performance jet
aircraft. 

Payette reported to the Lyndon B. Johnson Space
Center|Johnson Space Center in August 1996 to
begin mission specialist training. After
completing one year of training, she was assigned
to work on technical issues for the Astronaut
Office Robotics Branch.  Payette completed the
initial astronaut training in spring of 1998. 
Payette flew on Space Shuttle Space Shuttle
Discovery|Discovery from May 27 to June 6, 1999 as
part of the crew of STS-96. During the mission,
the crew performed the first manual docking of the
Shuttle to the International Space Station, and
delivered 4 tons of logistics and supplies to the
station. On Discovery, Payette served as a mission
specialist, held responsibility for the Station
systems and operated the Canadarm robotic arm on
orbit. The STS-96 mission was accomplished in 153
orbits of the Earth, traveling over 6 million
kilometers in 9 days, 19 hours and 13 minutes.
Payette became the first Canadian to participate
in an ISS assembly mission and to board the Space
Station.

Chief Astronaut for the Canadian Space Agency,
Payette also works as a Capsule
communicator|CAPCOM at the Mission Control Center
in Houston, and is one of the CAPCOMs for the
STS-114 Return To Flight mission. She divides her
time between these responsibilities and astronaut
currency training.

Her motto is Per aspera ad astra.

==See also==
===Canadian astronauts===
*Roberta Bondar
*Marc Garneau
*Chris Hadfield
*Steven MacLean
*Robert Thirsk
*Bjarni Tryggvason
*Dafydd Williams
===Space agencies===
*Canadian Space Agency|Canadian Space Agency (CSA)
*NASA

==References==
*http://www.jsc.nasa.gov/Bios/htmlbios/payette.htm
l Official NASA Bio 
*http://www.space.gc.ca/asc/eng/kidspace/creations
/text/astronaut-julie-payette.asp Official CSA Bio

==External Links==
*http://www.spectrum.ieee.org/WEBONLY/publicfeatur
e/feb04/0204payjob.html Julie Payette: Geek in
Space article in IEEE Spectrum, February 2004
*http://www.space.gc.ca/asc/eng/media/backgrounder
s/2005/0627-1.asp Article, including a photograph
of Payette at CAPCOM console
*http://www.nasa.gov/externalflash/afl/index.html
Pre-Recorded Q&A with Julie Payette in NASA's
Astronaut Flight Lounge; - Select "Julie Payette"
from the Astronauts tab.