Background

Gregory Bruce Jarvis was born on August 24, 1944, in Detroit, Michigan to the family of Greg Jarvis, and Lucille Ladd. Growing up, he was heavily involved with a variety of sports and was also a classical guitarist.

Education

Jarvis graduated from Mohawk Central High School (later renamed to Gregory B. Jarvis Middle School in his honor), in Mohawk, New York, in 1962. He received a Bachelor of Science degree in electrical engineering from the State University of New York at Buffalo in 1967 and a Master of Science degree in the same discipline from Northeastern University in 1969.

Career

After graduation, Gregory Jarvis served in the United States Air Force for four years, attaining the rank of captain. In 1973, Jarvis joined Hughes Aircraft Company, where he worked as an engineer on various satellite programs. Over the next few years, he served as an engineer for the MARISAT Program, which consisted of a set of maritime communications satellites. He then went on to work on communications systems for military use before joining the Advanced Program Laboratory to work on the LEASAT systems. The technology provided synchronous communications for a variety of applications. In 1984, Jarvis, along with 600 other Hughes engineers, applied to become payload specialists for NASA flights.

Jarvis was listed as a payload specialist, a category including people trained by commercial or research institutions to do specific space shuttle flights. His main interest was the effect of weightlessness on fluids. He was put on flight status and slated to go into space in 1985. However, his place was taken by Jake Garn, a U.S. senator who wanted to fly into space. Another senator, Bill Nelson, stepped in and also wanted to fly, so Jarvis' flight was postponed until 1986.

Jarvis was assigned as a payload specialist on STS-51L aboard the Challenger shuttle. It would be the 25th shuttle mission carried out by NASA and included the first teacher in space, Christa McAuliffe. Jarvis was tasked to study fluids in space, in particular, the effects on liquid-fueled rockets, as part of a fluid dynamics experiment. His specific duties were to test the reaction of satellite propellants to shuttle maneuvers.

The space shuttle Challenger was destroyed in an explosion 73 seconds after launch on January 28, 1986. In addition to Gregory Jarvis, crew members Christa McAuliffe, Ron McNair, Ellison Onizuka, Judith A. Resnik, Dick Scobee, and Michael J. Smith were killed in the disaster. After Jarvis' remains were recovered, he was cremated and scattered at sea by his widow, Marcia Jarboe Jarvis.

Achievements

• In 2004, Gregory Jarvis was posthumously awarded the Congressional Space Medal of Honor. There is an engineering building at the State University of New York, Buffalo, named after him, as well as a dam in New York state.
  
  Seven asteroids were named after the Challenger crew: 3350 Scobee, 3351 Smith, 3352 McAuliffe, 3353 Jarvis, 3354 McNair, 3355 Onizuka, and 3356 Resnik.

Interests

• guitar

• Sport & Clubs

  cycling, skiing, backpacking, racquet ball, white water river rafting

Connections

Gregory Jarvis married Marcia Jarboe in 1968 after they had met in college. They had no children. Marcia worked as a dental assistant.

Father:

Greg Jarvis

Mother:

Lucille Ladd

Wife:

Marcia Jarboe

References

• No Downlink: A Dramatic Narrative About the Challenger Accident and Our Time
  1996
• Challenger: A Major Malfunction
  1987
• The Challenger Launch Decision: Risky Technology, Culture, and Deviance at NASA
  1996