Bob Behnken is retiring from NASA after a pioneering 22-year profession.
Bob Behnken spent a total of 93 days in space 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 International Space Station (ISS) for 2 months in the summertime of 2020.
His final day on the company is as we speak (Nov. 11), NASA officers introduced.
Associated: SpaceX’s historic Demo-2 spaceflight in pictures
“Bob Behnken is a distinguished and proficient astronaut, and an efficient ambassador for our unending mission to discover the cosmos,” NASA Administrator Invoice Nelson said in a statement (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 function in serving to a brand new period of economic space take flight,” Nelson added. “Together with your complete NASA household, I admire Bob’s service to our nation and need him all one of the best 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 area 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 space shuttle Endeavour, which delivered Japan’s Kibo laboratory and Canada’s Dextre robotic arm to the ISS. He carried out three spacewalks through 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 beautiful views of their house planet.
He carried out three spacewalks throughout that 2010 flight and 4 extra over the course of Demo-2, racking up a total of 10 extravehicular actions general, in keeping with the NASA assertion.
Behnken additionally held the publish of NASA’s chief astronaut from 2012 to 2015 and was deputy of NASA’s Flight Operations Directorate from September 2021 via April 2022.
“Bob served the company in a significant function as an astronaut and contributed drastically to a few of NASA’s most essential and groundbreaking endeavors,” NASA human spaceflight chief Kathy Lueders stated in the identical assertion.
“Throughout his profession, he flew missions to assist construct a world-class science laboratory in space, 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 profit all of us as we proceed to push new boundaries.”
Behnken can also be a former U.S. Air Pressure colonel who accrued greater than 2,000 flight hours in additional than 25 various kinds of plane, in keeping with the NASA assertion. He retired from army service in February of this yr.
“I’m humbled to have had the chance to signify our nation as a NASA astronaut, and grateful to have been part of the group that returned human spaceflight to the US again in 2020,” Behnken stated in the identical assertion. “I’m so trying ahead to seeing and being amazed by what folks 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 ebook 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 Facebook (opens in new tab).
