Mark Vande Hei | |
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![]() Official portrait, 2016 | |
Born | Mark Thomas Vande Hei November 10, 1966 Falls Church, Virginia, U.S. |
Education | Saint John's University (BS) Stanford University (MS) |
Space career | |
NASA astronaut | |
Rank | Colonel, USA |
Time in space | 523d 8h 59m |
Selection | NASA Group 20 (2009) |
Total EVAs | 4 [1] |
Total EVA time | 26h 42m |
Missions | Soyuz MS-06 (Expedition 53/54) Soyuz MS-18/Soyuz MS-19 (Expedition 64/65/66) |
Mission insignia | ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() |
Mark Thomas Vande Hei (born November 10, 1966) is a retired United States Army officer and current NASA astronaut [2] who has served as a flight engineer for Expedition 53, 54, 64, 65, and 66 on the International Space Station. [3] [4]
Vande Hei was born November 10, 1966, in Falls Church, Virginia from Dutch parents. He graduated from Benilde-St. Margaret's High School in Saint Louis Park, Minnesota, in 1985. Vande Hei earned a Bachelor of Science degree with a major in Physics from Saint John's University in 1989, and a Master of Science degree in Applied Physics from Stanford University in 1999. [5]
Vande Hei was commissioned in the U.S. Army through the ROTC program in 1989 and became a combat engineer, serving in Iraq in Operation Provide Comfort. [5] After earning his master's degree in 1999, he became an assistant professor of physics at the United States Military Academy in West Point. In 2003, he became part of the Army's 1st Space Battalion at Peterson Air Force Base. Vande Hei again served in Iraq in Operation Iraqi Freedom. [5] He retired in October 2016 at the rank of Colonel. [6]
Vande Hei began working at Johnson Space Center in 2006 as part of the U.S. Army contingent there. He worked as a communications officer (which is a flight controller responsible for communicating with astronauts in space) for the International Space Station. In June 2009, Vande Hei was selected as a member of the NASA Astronaut Group 20 and he completed astronaut candidate training in June 2011.
On June 10, 2014, NASA announced that Vande Hei would serve as an aquanaut aboard the Aquarius underwater laboratory during the NEEMO 18 undersea exploration mission, which began on July 21, 2014, and lasted nine days. [7] [8]
In May 2015, it was announced that he had been assigned to ISS Expedition 51/52 scheduled to launch in March 2017 aboard Soyuz MS-04. He was reassigned in November 2016 to ISS Expedition 53/54 scheduled to launch in 2017 aboard Soyuz MS-06. [9]
Vande Hei launched to space as part of Expedition 53/54 on Soyuz MS-06 on September 12, 2017. After launch the crew performed the fast rendezvous with the ISS and docked automatically after approximately 6 hours. [10]
On October 5, 2017, Vande Hei performed his first spacewalk, along with Commander Randy Bresnik. The spacewalk replaced the gripping mechanism on Canadarm2, the latching end effector A, or LEE-A. The duration was 6 hours and 55 minutes. [11] On October 10, 2017, they completed the second EVA of the mission. They lubricated the newly installed end effector and replaced cameras, and the duration was 6 hours and 26 minutes.
The expedition ended on February 27, 2018, at 9:31 p.m. EST with Vande Hei's, Bresnik's, and third crew member Joseph M. Acaba's successful landing back on Earth. [3]
In March 2021 it was confirmed that Vande Hei would be making a second spaceflight, as a flight engineer onboard Soyuz MS-18, and be part of ISS Expedition 64/65. [12] [13] On April 9, 2021, Vande Hei alongside Roscosmos cosmonauts Oleg Novitskiy and Pyotr Dubrov successfully launched onboard Soyuz MS-18 at 3:42 am EDT. [14]
On September 14, 2021, it was announced that Vande Hei and Pyotr Dubrov had their six-month stays on the station extended by another six months. [15] This means Vande Hei broke the record for the longest spaceflight by an American astronaut with 355 days. Later, Francisco Rubio broke his record with a total of 371 days in September 2023. [16]
Two weeks of technical and weather delays, together with Crew-2 approaching the maximum on-orbit duration of their Crew Dragon craft, forced a highly undesirable “indirect handover”. As such, Crew-2 departed the station on November 8, 2021, whilst Crew-3 launched three days later and arrived safely at the sprawling orbital outpost on November 11, 2021. In this instance, there was no absence of U.S. personnel since NASA’s Mark Vande Hei was still on ISS. But had he not been aboard, the indirect handover of USOS operations from Crew-2 to Crew-3 might have left an unwanted gap in U.S. station crewing. [17]
On January 6, 2022, Hei and Dubrov completed 273 days on ISS, surpassing Andrew R. Morgan‘s record of 272 days on-board. [18] Shortly before his return to Earth, he passed 340 days in space, surpassing Scott Kelly as the record holder for the longest American spaceflight. [19]
He returned to Earth with Soyuz MS-19 on March 30, 2022, having spent a total of 355 days in space on a mission to better observe the effects of long-duration spaceflight on humans. [20] [21]
On March 10, 2022, Dmitry Rogozin posted a video on social media threatening to abandon Vande Hei on the ISS in retaliation against American sanctions on Russia's high tech imports that were placed upon Russia after the Russian invasion of Ukraine. [22] [23] He landed as planned on March 30. [20]
Six months after returning from his 355 days in space, Mark returned to his high school, Benilde-St. Margaret's on September 23, 2022. During the 2015-2016 school year, two students from Benilde-St. Margaret's were chosen to give their student ID cards to Vande Hei so he could take the cards to space with him. Mark returned these IDs when at the school. [24] A representative for Minnesota Governor Tim Walz declared September 23, 2022 to be Mark Vande Hei Day in Minnesota. Brian Bruess, the president of the College of Saint Benedict and Saint John's University, also came to congratulate Vande Hei. [25]
He was born in Virginia and raised in New Jersey and Minnesota. He is married to Julie Vande Hei and has two children. [5]
On May 14, 2021, the Interagency Committee approved the composition of the ISS main and alternate crews for the period 2021-2023. [26] Cosmonaut Anton Shkaplerov (commander) and the crew of the film The Challenge : actress Yulia Peresild and director Klim Shipenko, went to the ISS onboard Soyuz MS-19. The drama is a joint project of Roscosmos, Channel One and the Yellow, Black and White studio. [27] [28]
The director and actress returned to Earth on October 17, 2021 on Soyuz MS-18 with commander Oleg Novitskiy. Pyotr Dubrov and Mark Vande Hei, who arrived at the ISS on Soyuz MS-18, joined Shkaplerov on the landing of Soyuz MS-19 on March 30, 2022. [29] [30]
Klim Shipenko shot about 35–40 minutes of film on the ISS, as well as taking on the position of director, operator, art director, and makeup artist. Oleg Novitsky and Pyotr Dubrov will appear in the film, [31] with Dubrov and Mark Vande Hei assisting in the production. [32]
Nauka, also known as the Multipurpose Laboratory Module-Upgrade or simply Multipurpose Laboratory Module (MLM), is a module of the International Space Station (ISS). The MLM-U is funded by Roscosmos. In the original ISS plans, Nauka was to use the location of the Docking and Storage Module (DSM). Later, the DSM was replaced by the Rassvet module and Nauka was moved from Zarya's nadir port to Zvezda's nadir port.
Akihiko Hoshide is a Japanese engineer, JAXA astronaut, and former commander of the International Space Station. On August 30, 2012, Hoshide became the third Japanese astronaut to walk in space.
Oleg Viktorovich Novitsky is a former Lieutenant Colonel in the Russian Air Force who logged over 700 hours of flight time and was awarded for bravery. He is currently serving as a Russian cosmonaut with Roscosmos and has participated in multiple expeditions, during which he has spent over 545 days in space.
Anton Nikolaevich Shkaplerov is a former Russian cosmonaut. He is a veteran of four spaceflights.
Anatoli Alekseyevich Ivanishin is a former Russian cosmonaut. His first visit to space was to the International Space Station on board the Soyuz TMA-22 spacecraft as an Expedition 29 / Expedition 30 crew member, launching in November 2011 and returning in April 2012. Ivanishin was the Commander of the International Space Station for Expedition 49.
Andrew Richard "Drew" Morgan is a NASA astronaut from the class of 2013.
Soyuz MS-04 was a Soyuz spaceflight that launched on 20 April 2017 to the ISS. It transported two members of the Expedition 52 crew to the International Space Station. Soyuz MS-04 was the 133rd flight of a Soyuz spacecraft. The crew consisted of a Russian commander and an American flight engineer. It was the first of the Soyuz MS series to rendezvous with the Station in approximately 6 hours, instead of the 2 day orbital rendezvous used for the previous launches. It was also the first Soyuz to launch with only 2 crew members since Soyuz TMA-2.
Soyuz MS-17 was a Soyuz spaceflight that was launched on 14 October 2020. It transported three crew members of the Expedition 63/64 crew to the International Space Station. Soyuz MS-17 was the 145th crewed flight of a Soyuz spacecraft. The crew consisted of a Russian commander and a Russian and American flight engineer.
Klim Alekseevich Shipenko is a Russian film director, screenwriter, cinematographer, actor, producer and cosmonaut.
Expedition 65 was the 65th long duration expedition to the International Space Station. The mission began on 17 April 2021 with the departure of Soyuz MS-17 and was initially commanded by NASA astronaut Shannon Walker serving as the third female ISS commander, who launched in November 2020 aboard SpaceX Crew-1 alongside NASA astronauts Michael S. Hopkins and Victor J. Glover, as well as JAXA astronaut Soichi Noguchi. They were joined by the crew of Soyuz MS-18, which is made up of Russian cosmonauts Oleg Novitsky and Pyotr Dubrov, as well as NASA astronaut Mark Vande Hei.
Soyuz MS-18 was a Soyuz spaceflight that was launched on 9 April 2021 at 07:42:41 UTC. It transported three members of the Expedition 64 crew to the International Space Station (ISS). Soyuz MS-18 was the 146th crewed flight of a Soyuz spacecraft. The launching crew consisted of a Russian commander, a Russian flight engineer, and an American flight engineer of NASA. The spacecraft returned to Earth on 17 October 2021 following 191 days in space. The flight served as the landing vehicle for the Russian film director Klim Shipenko and actress Yulia Peresild who launched to the ISS aboard Soyuz MS-19 and spent twelve days in space in order to film a movie, Vyzov.
Soyuz MS-20 was a Russian Soyuz spaceflight to the International Space Station (ISS) on 8–20 December 2021. Unlike previous Soyuz flights to the ISS, Soyuz MS-20 did not deliver any crew members for an ISS Expedition or serve as a lifeboat for any crew members on board the station. Instead, it was commanded by a single professional cosmonaut and carried two space tourists represented by company Space Adventures, which had executed eight space tourism missions to the ISS in 2001–9. The flight to reach the ISS took six hours.
Soyuz MS-19 was a Soyuz spaceflight which launched on 5 October 2021, at 08:55:02 UTC. It was the 147th flight of a crewed Soyuz spacecraft. The launching crew consisted of Russian commander Anton Shkaplerov, Russian film director Klim Shipenko and Russian actress Yulia Peresild. Shipenko and Peresild spent about twelve days on the International Space Station before returning to Earth aboard Soyuz MS-18, while filming a movie in space, Vyzov. The MS-18 flight launched two crew members of the Expedition 66. Without an American astronaut, this launch marked the first time in more than 21 years that a Soyuz crew only included Russian cosmonauts and travelers and the ship had to be upgraded to be piloted by a single person at launch. This is also the first mission to the ISS with an entirely Russian crew.
Pyotr Valerievich Dubrov is a Russian engineer and cosmonaut selected by Roscosmos in 2012.
Expedition 66 was the 66th long-duration expedition to the International Space Station. The mission began after the departure of Soyuz MS-18 on 17 October 2021. It was commanded by European Space Agency astronaut Thomas Pesquet, the fourth European astronaut to command the ISS and first French astronaut to command the orbital laboratory until 8 November 2021 when Russian cosmonaut Anton Shkaplerov, who arrived aboard Soyuz MS-19 and took over his command.
Expedition 67 was the 67th long-duration expedition to the International Space Station. The expedition began upon the departure of Soyuz MS-19 on 30 March 2022, with NASA astronaut Thomas Marshburn taking over as ISS commander. Initially, the expedition consisted of Marshburn and his three SpaceX Crew-3 crewmates Raja Chari, Kayla Barron and Matthias Maurer, as well as Roscosmos cosmonauts Oleg Artemyev, Denis Matveev and Sergey Korsakov, who launched aboard Soyuz MS-21 on March 18, 2022 and transferred from Expedition 66 alongside the Crew-3 astronauts. However, continued international collaboration has been thrown into doubt by the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine and related sanctions on Russia.
Progress MS-17, Russian production No. 446, identified by NASA as Progress 78P, was a Progress spaceflight operated by Roscosmos to resupply the International Space Station (ISS). This was the 169th flight of a Progress spacecraft.
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Expedition 68 was the 68th long-duration expedition to the International Space Station. The expedition began upon the departure of Soyuz MS-21 on 29 September 2022, with ESA astronaut Samantha Cristoforetti taking over as ISS commander, and ended upon the departure of the uncrewed Soyuz MS-22 spacecraft on 28 March 2023.
The Challenge is a 2023 Russian space drama film co-written and directed by Klim Shipenko. It is the first professionally made fictional film that has scenes in which professional actors appear shot in space. These took place aboard the International Space Station. The film stars Yulia Peresild as a surgeon sent to space to help an injured cosmonaut. The film's cast also includes Miloš Biković and Vladimir Mashkov. The film crew was accompanied by cosmonauts Anton Shkaplerov, Oleg Novitsky, and Pyotr Dubrov, and NASA astronaut Mark T. Vande Hei.
This article incorporates public domain material from websites or documents of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration .