Stewart Nozette

Stewart David Nozette (born May 20, 1957) is an American planetary scientist, technologist, and consultant who worked for the United States Department of Energy, the United States Department of Defense, DARPA, the United States Naval Research Laboratory, and NASA. He is also a convicted felon for attempted espionage and fraud against the United States. The FBI arrested him on October 19, 2009, charging him with attempted espionage after a sting operation which Nozette's lawyer claims amounted to entrapment. At trial, Nozette admitted attempting to sell U.S. classified information to someone he believed was an Israeli Mossad operative, but was in reality an undercover Federal Bureau of Investigation employee. He pleaded guilty to one charge of attempted espionage and was sentenced, under the terms of a plea bargain, to thirteen years in prison. After serving time at the Federal Correctional Institution, Terre Haute, Nozette was released on November 13, 2020.

Personal life and education Nozette was born in Chicago, Illinois, on May 20, 1957, He worked a couple of summers in the 1970's as a guide-lecturer at the Museum of Science and Industry (Chicago) while he was home from the University of Arizona.

Career In 1983-1984 Nozette was co-director of the California Space Institute, affiliated with the Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego. From there he went to the University of Texas as an Assistant Professor of Aerospace Engineering Austin, Texas.

In the early 1990s, Nozette, as part of the Strategic Defense Initiative's 'Brilliant Pebbles', conceived the idea (and then led the mission) of the Clementine spacecraft as a means to both provide a test bed for the development of lighter, more cost effective advanced space technology, as well as to obtain data for the Moon.

Nozette and colleagues' bistatic radar results from Clementine claimed to support the discovery of water on the south pole of the Moon. Although the significance of the result was questioned, measurements made by subsequent Lunar missions have supported the hypothesis that the Moon holds substantially greater reserves of water than had been thought based on Apollo program results and confirmed Nozette's original findings. The engineering model of the Clementine spacecraft, which Nozette worked on, hangs in the Air & Space Museum in Washington, DC.

Over the course of his career, Nozette held high level security clearances and worked on sensitive United States nuclear and satellite programs. He held a Q clearance, top secret clearance, and was read into multiple special access programs.

Espionage and arrest Nozette was under investigation by the Justice Department for possible fraudulent billing on a NASA contract by a nonprofit corporation he ran, "Alliance for Competitive Technology". An agent for the NASA inspector general had found billing to NASA for expenses including, among other things, three mortgages, nine credit cards, a tennis club, pool cleaning, and the Mercedes-Benz Credit Corporation. Documents found by the Justice Department while investigating these irregularities included classified documents and an e-mail in which Nozette "threatened to take a classified program on which he worked to an unnamed foreign country or Israel." This information was passed along to the FBI.

In September 2009, Nozette began receiving phone calls from a person claiming to be an agent of Mossad. In reality this was an undercover FBI agent. Nozette expressed a willingness to exchange American intelligence for financial rewards. His first payment was received upon his answers to a list of questions regarding American satellite technology for public access GPS. The information he claimed he would hand over included classified information. A folder left for this contact in a post office box contained "information classified as both top secret and secret that concerned US satellites, early warning systems, means of defense or retaliation against large-scale attack, communications intelligence information, and major elements of defense strategy." Nozette's contention is that this was a sting set up as the result of being forced to co-operate in a planned sting of senior political leadership responsible for NASA funding in Mississippi and Alabama. This is documented in his pardon plea.

According to the criminal complaint, Nozette told his espionage contact that his parents were Jewish, and therefore claimed a right to return under Israel's Law of Return. He also asked allegedly for two million dollars and a passport. The prosecution of the fraud and tax evasion case was handled by Assistant U.S. Attorney Michael K. Atkinson from the Fraud and Public Corruption Section of the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia and Trial Attorney Kenneth C. Vert from the Department of Justice’s Tax Division. He was sentenced to thirteen years of prison. Held in custody since his arrest in 2009, Nozette received credit for the time he had already served. Nozette was released on November 13, 2020.

Nozette published his first novel 'The Day Of Infamy: Space Pearl Harbor' in 2026, from Pegasus Publishing. The first book of a trilogy, these will be followed by his memoir, 'Cat's Paw'.

Honors NASA Exceptional Achievement Medal 1994 for his conception and execution of the Clementine mission National Space Society’s Space Pioneer Award for 1994 Rotary National Award for Space Achievement National Space Club, Nelson P. Jackson Aerospace Memorial Award Aviation Week and Space Technology 1994 Aerospace Laurel Award for outstanding achievement in the field of Space 1995 Space Frontier Foundation Vision to Reality Award X-Prize Foundation New Spirit of St. Louis Award

Selected publications