Kevin Patrick "Chilli" Chilton (born November 3, 1954) is an American mechanical engineer and retired United States Air Force four-star general, test pilot, and NASA astronaut.

Prior to his appointment to general officer ranks, Chilton spent 11 years of his military career as a NASA astronaut.

Chilton was assigned to Eglin Air Force Base, Florida, where he conducted weapons and systems tests in all models of the F-15 and F-4 aircraft.

He served in the Mission Development Branch of the Astronaut Office in support of the Infrared Background Signature Survey (IBSS) satellite, and the Orbital Maneuvering Vehicle (OMV) programs.

An accomplished guitarist, Chilton spent a portion of his spare time hammering out riffs on a Fender Stratocaster while jamming with the all astronaut band, "Max Q".

STS-49 logged 213 hours in space and 141 Earth orbits prior to landing at Edwards Air Force Base, California, where the crew conducted the first test of the Endeavour’s drag chute.

This multispectral capability of the radars provided information about the Earth's surface over a wide range of scales not discernible with previous single-frequency experiments.

Real-time crew observations of surface phenomena and climatic conditions augmented with over 14,000 photographs aided investigators in interpretation and calibration of the data.

[4] Chilton commanded STS-76, the third docking mission to the Russian space station Mir, which launched on March 22, 1996, with a crew of six aboard Atlantis.

Experiment packages were transferred from the Shuttle and mounted on the Mir docking module to detect and assess debris and contamination in a space station environment.

Following 145 orbits of the Earth, Atlantis landed with a crew of five at Edwards Air Force Base in California on March 31, 1996, 221 hours after liftoff.

[5] Chilton left NASA in 1998 to become deputy director of political military affairs for Asia, Pacific, and the Middle East on the Joint Staff.

Chilton also responsible with the primary Strategic Deterrence mission which its purpose is to anticipate an incoming Nuclear-Strike towards the United States.

[12] In the case of Strategic Deterrence, Chilton emphasized the incoming dangers of United States primary adversary that has Nuclear arsenal such as North Korea.

[12] Chilton reaffirm that such threat from United States primary adversaries that own Nuclear arsenal is a clear and present danger.