Thomas Dale Akers is a former American astronaut in NASA's Space Shuttle program.
Scott Douglas "Scooter" Altman is a retired United States Navy Captain and naval aviator, engineer, test pilot and former NASA astronaut. He is a veteran of four Space Shuttle missions. His fourth mission on STS-125 was the last servicing mission to the Hubble Space Telescope. As of November 2022, he is the president of the Space operating group for ASRC Federal.
STS-37, the thirty-ninth NASA Space Shuttle mission and the eighth flight of the Space Shuttle Atlantis, was a six-day mission with the primary objective of launching the Compton Gamma Ray Observatory (CGRO), the second of the Great Observatories program which included the visible-spectrum Hubble Space Telescope (HST), the Chandra X-ray Observatory (CXO) and the infrared Spitzer Space Telescope. The mission also featured two spacewalks, the first since 1985.
STS-51 was a NASA Space Shuttle Discovery mission that launched the Advanced Communications Technology Satellite (ACTS) in September 1993. The flight also featured the deployment and retrieval of the SPAS-ORFEUS satellite and its IMAX camera, which captured spectacular footage of Discovery in space. A spacewalk was also performed during the mission to evaluate tools and techniques for the STS-61 Hubble Space Telescope (HST) servicing mission later that year. STS-51 was the first shuttle mission to fly a Global Positioning System (GPS) receiver, a Trimble TANS Quadrex. It was mounted in an overhead window where limited field of view (FoV) and signal attenuation from the glass severely impacted receiver performance. Full triple-redundant 3-string GPS would not happen until 14 years later with STS-118 in 2007.
STS-61 was NASA's first Hubble Space Telescope servicing mission, and the fifth flight of the Space Shuttle Endeavour. The mission launched on December 2, 1993, from Kennedy Space Center (KSC) in Florida. The mission restored the spaceborne observatory's vision with the installation of a new main camera and a corrective optics package (COSTAR). This correction occurred more than three and a half years after the Hubble was launched aboard STS-31 in April 1990. The flight also brought instrument upgrades and new solar arrays to the telescope.
Richard James Hieb is a former NASA astronaut and a veteran of three Space Shuttle missions. He was a mission specialist on STS-39 and STS-49, and was a payload commander on STS-65. After leaving NASA he worked at AlliedSignal and Orbital before spending 14 years as an executive at Lockheed Martin. He is currently a faculty member in the University of Colorado Boulder Smead Aerospace Engineering Sciences Department.
STS-82 was the 22nd flight of the Space Shuttle Discovery and the 82nd mission of the Space Shuttle program. It was NASA's second mission to service the Hubble Space Telescope, during which Discovery's crew repaired and upgraded the telescope's scientific instruments, increasing its research capabilities. Discovery launched from Kennedy Space Center, Florida, on February 11, 1997, returning to Earth on February 21, 1997, at Kennedy Space Center.
STS-109 (SM3B) was a Space Shuttle mission that launched from the Kennedy Space Center on 1 March 2002. It was the 108th mission of the Space Shuttle program, the 27th flight of the orbiter Columbia and the fourth servicing of the Hubble Space Telescope. It was also the last successful mission of the orbiter Columbia before the ill-fated STS-107 mission, which culminated in the Columbia disaster.
Jeffrey Alan Hoffman is an American former NASA astronaut and currently a professor of aeronautics and astronautics at MIT.
John Mace Grunsfeld is an American physicist and a former NASA astronaut. He is a veteran of five Space Shuttle flights and has served as NASA Chief Scientist. His academic background includes research in high energy astrophysics, cosmic ray physics and the emerging field of exoplanet studies with specific interest in future astronomical instrumentation. After retiring from NASA in 2009, he served as the deputy director of the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, Maryland. In January 2012, he returned to NASA and served as associate administrator of NASA's Science Mission Directorate (SMD). Grunsfeld announced his retirement from NASA in April 2016.
Linda Maxine Godwin is an American scientist and retired NASA astronaut. Godwin joined NASA in 1980 and became an astronaut in July 1986. She retired in 2010. During her career, Godwin completed four space flights and logged over 38 days in space. Godwin also served as the assistant to the director for exploration, Flight Crew Operations Directorate at the Johnson Space Center. Since retiring from NASA, she accepted the position of professor in the Department of Physics and Astronomy at the University of Missouri.
Richard Michael Linnehan is a United States Army veterinarian and a NASA astronaut.
James Hansen Newman is an American physicist and a former NASA astronaut who flew on four Space Shuttle missions.
Paul William Richards is an American engineer and a former NASA Astronaut. He flew aboard one Space Shuttle mission in 2001.
Steven Lee Smith, is an American technology executive and a former NASA astronaut, being a veteran of four space flights covering 16 million miles and seven spacewalks, totaling 49 hours and 25 minutes. Smith’s spacewalk time places him in 14th on the all-time American and World spacewalk duration lists.
Kathryn Ryan Cordell Thornton is an American scientist and a former NASA astronaut with over 975 hours in space, including 21 hours of extravehicular activity. She was the associate dean for graduate programs at the University of Virginia School of Engineering and Applied Science, currently a professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering.
Pierre Joseph Thuot is a retired United States Navy captain and NASA astronaut. He went into space three times, spending over 650 hours in space, including over 15 hours in three space walks. He is a former U.S. record holder for time spent on one spacewalk, and participated in the first three-person spacewalk.
James Shelton Voss is a retired United States Army colonel and NASA astronaut. During his time with NASA, Voss flew in space five times on board the Space Shuttle and International Space Station. He also served as deputy of Flight Operations for the Space Station Program Mission Integration and Operations Office. While participating in ISS Expedition 2, he and Susan Helms conducted an 8-hour and 56 minute spacewalk, the longest to date.
Andrew Jay "Drew" Feustel is a former American/Canadian NASA astronaut and geophysicist. Following several years working as a geophysicist, Feustel was selected as an astronaut candidate by NASA in July 2000. He is the veteran of 3 space flights with NASA. His first spaceflight in May 2009, STS-125, lasted just under 13 days. This was a mission with six other astronauts to repair the Hubble Space Telescope, aboard Space Shuttle Atlantis. Feustel performed three spacewalks during the mission. His second spaceflight was STS-134, which launched on May 16, 2011, and landed on June 1, 2011. STS-134 was the penultimate Space Shuttle flight. Feustel returned to space on March 21, 2018, on Soyuz MS-08 with Expedition 55/56. For expedition 56, he commanded the International Space Station, before handing over to Alexander Gerst on October 3, 2018.
NASA Astronaut Group 12 was a group of 15 astronauts announced by NASA on June 5, 1987.
