Maurizio Cheli

Maurizio Cheli is an Italian air force officer and European Space Agency astronaut who holds the rank of lieutenant colonel in the Italian Air Force and trained at the Empire Test Pilots' School in England in 1988. He was selected as an astronaut candidate by the European Space Agency in 1992, joining both the 1992 ESA group and NASA Astronaut Group 14, and flew his only spaceflight aboard Space Shuttle mission STS-75 in 1996 as a mission specialist, logging almost 16 days in space. He later became Chief Test Pilot for combat aircraft at Alenia Aeronautica, notably working on the Eurofighter Typhoon program.