Bob Behnken is retiring from NASA after a pioneering 22-year profession.
Bob Behnken spent a complete of 93 days in house over the course of three separate missions. Most of his off-Earth time got here on Demo-2, SpaceX’s first-ever crewed flight, which despatched Behnken and fellow NASA astronaut Doug Hurley to the Worldwide Area Station (ISS) for 2 months in the summertime of 2020.
His final day on the company is right this moment (Nov. 11), NASA officers introduced.
Associated: SpaceX’s historic Demo-2 spaceflight in footage
“Bob Behnken is a distinguished and proficient astronaut, and an efficient ambassador for our unending mission to discover the cosmos,” NASA Administrator Invoice Nelson mentioned in a press release (opens in new tab) on Thursday (Nov. 10).
“Bob and fellow NASA astronaut Doug Hurley launched into historical past with their impeccable command of NASA and SpaceX’s Demo-2 mission and performed a pivotal position in serving to a brand new period of business house take flight,” Nelson added. “Together with your complete NASA household, I recognize Bob’s service to our nation and need him all the perfect in his subsequent endeavor.”
Behnken grew up in St. Ann, Missouri. He earned bachelor’s levels in physics and mechanical engineering from Washington College in St. Louis in 1992, a grasp’s in mechanical engineering from the California Institute of Expertise (Caltech) in 1993, and a Ph.D. in the identical discipline from Caltech 4 years later, in keeping with NASA’s Thursday assertion.
Behnken joined NASA as an astronaut candidate in July 2000. He first left Earth in 2008, serving as a mission specialist on the STS-123 flight of the house shuttle Endeavour, which delivered Japan’s Kibo laboratory and Canada’s Dextre robotic arm to the ISS. He carried out three spacewalks in the course of the practically 16-day mission.
Behnken flew to the orbiting lab once more in 2010, on Endeavour’s two-week-long STS-130 mission. That flight additionally introduced key {hardware} to the ISS — the Tranquility module and the seven-window cupola, which affords astronauts gorgeous views of their residence planet.
He carried out three spacewalks throughout that 2010 flight and 4 extra over the course of Demo-2, racking up a complete of 10 extravehicular actions general, in keeping with the NASA assertion.
Behnken additionally held the put up of NASA’s chief astronaut from 2012 to 2015 and was deputy of NASA’s Flight Operations Directorate from September 2021 by April 2022.
“Bob served the company in an important position as an astronaut and contributed drastically to a few of NASA’s most essential and groundbreaking endeavors,” NASA human spaceflight chief Kathy Lueders mentioned in the identical assertion.
“Throughout his profession, he flew missions to assist construct a world-class science laboratory in house, flew the primary industrial crew spacecraft to orbit, and left his mark within the astronaut corps,” she added. “All of those contributions to human spaceflight will proceed to learn all of us as we proceed to push new boundaries.”
Behnken can also be a former U.S. Air Power colonel who accrued greater than 2,000 flight hours in additional than 25 several types of plane, in keeping with the NASA assertion. He retired from army service in February of this 12 months.
“I’m humbled to have had the chance to signify our nation as a NASA astronaut, and grateful to have been part of the staff that returned human spaceflight to america again in 2020,” Behnken mentioned in the identical assertion. “I’m so trying ahead to seeing and being amazed by what individuals of this nice company will accomplish subsequent.”
Mike Wall is the creator of “Out There (opens in new tab)” (Grand Central Publishing, 2018; illustrated by Karl Tate), a guide concerning the seek for alien life. Comply with him on Twitter @michaeldwall (opens in new tab). Comply with us on Twitter @Spacedotcom (opens in new tab) or on Fb (opens in new tab).
