Pierre Joseph Thuot (/ˈθuːət/; born May 19, 1955) is a retired United States Navycaptain and NASAastronaut. 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.
Selected as an astronaut by NASA in June 1985, Thuot has served in a variety of technical assignments. As the remote manipulator system (robot arm), crew equipment, and extravehicular activity (EVA) representative for the Astronaut Office, he participated in the design, development and evaluation of Space Shuttle payloads, crew equipment and crew procedures. He performed Space Shuttle flight software verification in the Shuttle Avionics Integration Laboratory (SAIL) and served as a CAPCOM in the Mission Control Center, responsible for communications with the crew for numerous Space Shuttle missions. He served as the lead astronaut for Space Station integrated assembly and maintenance operations within the Astronaut Office. He served as Chief of the Astronaut Office Mission Support Branch, as well as supervising astronaut candidate training for the class of 1995. A veteran of three space flights, STS-36 in 1990, STS-49 in 1992 and STS-62 in 1994, Thuot has logged over 654 hours in space, including 17.7 hours on three space walks. Thuot was the first member of NASA Astronaut Group 11 to fly a shuttle mission.
On his first flight, Thuot was a mission specialist on the crew of STS-36 which was launched from the Kennedy Space Center, Florida, on February 28, 1990, aboard the Space Shuttle Atlantis. This mission carried Department of Defense payloads and a number of secondary payloads. Following 72 orbits of the Earth in 106 hours, the STS-36 mission concluded with a lakebed landing at Edwards Air Force Base, California, on March 4, 1990, after traveling 1.87 million miles.[3]
Thuot was a mission specialist on the crew of STS-49, the maiden voyage of the Space ShuttleEndeavour, which was launched from the Kennedy Space Center on May 7, 1992. During that mission, Thuot, along with astronaut Richard Hieb, performed three spacewalks which resulted in the capture and repair of the stranded Intelsat VI F3 communications satellite. The third spacewalk, which also included astronaut Thomas Akers, was the first-ever three-person spacewalk. This 8 hour and 29 minute spacewalk, the longest in history, broke a twenty-year-old record that was held by the Apollo 17 astronauts. The mission concluded on May 16, 1992, with a landing at Edwards Air Force Base after orbiting the Earth 141 times in 213 hours and traveling 3.7 million miles.[4]
On March 4, 1994, Thuot was launched aboard Space ShuttleColumbia on STS-62, a microgravity science and technology demonstration mission that carried the United States Microgravity Payload (USMP-2) and the Office of Aeronautics and Space Technology (OAST-2) payloads. More than sixty experiments or investigations were conducted in scientific and engineering disciplines including materials science, human physiology, biotechnology, protein crystal growth, robotics, structural dynamics, atmospheric ozone monitoring and spacecraft glow. During the spacecraft glow investigation, Columbia's orbital altitude was lowered to 105 nautical miles (194km), the lowest ever flown by a Space Shuttle. STS-62, one of the longest Space Shuttle missions, concluded on March 18, 1994, with a landing at the Kennedy Space Center after orbiting the Earth 224 times in 13 days, 23 hours, and 16 minutes and traveling 5.8 million miles.[5]
With the completion of his third mission, Thuot has logged over 654 hours in space, including over 17.7 hours on three spacewalks.
Thuot left NASA in June 1995 and returned to active service with the Navy.
Post-Navy career
Thuot retired from the U.S. Navy in 1998 and took a job with Orbital Sciences Corporation as a vice president in the Dulles, Virginia-based firm's Space Systems Group. He is currently a Senior Systems Engineer at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory.[2]
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