STS-106

Terrence W. Wilcutt

• Birthday: 10/31/1949
• Role: Commander
• Nationality: American
• First Flight: 09/30/1994
• Last Flight: 09/08/2000

Terrence Wade Wilcutt is a United States Marine Corps officer and a NASA astronaut. He is a veteran of four Space Shuttle missions. Wilcutt is currently the Director of Safety and Mission Assurance, Johnson Space Center.

Scott Altman

• Birthday: 08/15/1959
• Role: Pilot
• Nationality: American
• First Flight: 04/17/1998
• Last Flight: 05/11/2009

Scott Douglas “Scooter” Altman is a retired United States Navy Captain, 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.

Boris Morukov

• Birthday: 10/01/1950
• Role: Mission Specialist
• Nationality: Russian
• First Flight: 09/08/2000
• Last Flight: 09/08/2000

Boris Vladimirovich Morukov (Russian: Бори́с Влади́мирович Моруков; 1 October 1950 – 1 January 2015) was a Russian physician at the State Research Center RF-Institute for Biomedical Problems (IBMP). He trained with the Russian Federal Space Agency as a research-cosmonaut and flew aboard NASA Space Shuttle mission STS-106 as a mission specialist.

Daniel C. Burbank

• Birthday: 07/27/1961
• Role: Mission Specialist
• Nationality: American
• First Flight: 09/08/2000
• Last Flight: 11/14/2011

Daniel Christopher Burbank is a retired American astronaut and a veteran of two Space Shuttle missions. Burbank, a Captain in the United States Coast Guard, is the second Coast Guard astronaut after Bruce Melnick.

Burbank was born in Manchester, Connecticut, and raised in Tolland, Connecticut, where he graduated from Tolland High School. He attended Fairfield University his freshman year before transferring to the United States Coast Guard Academy, where he earned his commission in 1985. In 1987, he went through flight training and became an instructor pilot, serving at various Coast Guard stations at Coast Guard Air Station Elizabeth City, Coast Guard Air Station Cape Cod, and Coast Guard Air Station Sitka.

Ed Lu

• Birthday: 07/01/1963
• Role: Mission Specialist
• Nationality: American
• First Flight: 05/15/1997
• Last Flight: 04/26/2003

Edward Tsang “Ed” Lu (simplified Chinese: 卢杰; traditional Chinese: 盧傑; pinyin: Lú Jié) is an American physicist and former NASA astronaut. He flew on two Space Shuttle flights, and made an extended stay aboard the International Space Station.

In 2007, Lu retired from NASA to become the program manager of Google’s Advanced Projects Team. In 2002, while still at NASA, Lu co-founded the B612 Foundation, dedicated to protecting the Earth from asteroid strikes, later serving as its chairman. As of 2014, he is currently its chief executive officer (CEO).

Richard Mastracchio

• Birthday: 02/11/1960
• Role: Mission Specialist
• Nationality: American
• First Flight: 09/08/2000
• Last Flight: 11/07/2013

Richard Alan “Rick” Mastracchio is an American engineer and former NASA astronaut. He has flown on three NASA Space Shuttle missions as a mission specialist in addition to serving as a Flight Engineer on the Soyuz TMA-11M (Expedition 38/Expedition 39) long duration mission aboard the International Space Station. He is currently the Senior Director of Operations for Commercial Resupply Services at Orbital ATK.

Yuri Malenchenko

• Birthday: 12/22/1961
• Role: Mission Specialist
• Nationality: Russian
• First Flight: 07/01/1994
• Last Flight: 12/15/2015

Yuri Ivanovich Malenchenko (Russian: Юрий Иванович Маленченко; born December 22, 1961) is a retired Russian cosmonaut. Malenchenko became the first person to marry in space, on 10 August 2003, when he married Ekaterina Dmitrieva, who was in Texas, while he was 240 miles over New Zealand, on the International Space Station. As of June 2016, Malenchenko ranks second for career time in space due to his time on both Mir and the International Space Station (ISS). He is a former Commander of the International Space Station.

STS-106

• Type: Human Exploration
• Orbit: Low Earth Orbit
• Launch Cost: $450,000,000

STS-106 was a Space Shuttle mission to the International Space Station (ISS) flown by Space Shuttle Atlantis.

Launch Complex 39B

Kennedy Space Center, FL, USA

Launch Complex 39B has witnessed the launch of 58 rockets, including 57 orbital launch attempts, while Kennedy Space Center, FL, USA, has been the site for 231 rocket launches.

National Aeronautics and Space Administration Space Shuttle

The Space Shuttle is a retired, partially reusable low Earth orbital spacecraft system operated from 1981 to 2011 by the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) as part of the Space Shuttle program. Its official program name was Space Transportation System (STS). Five complete Space Shuttle orbiter vehicles were built and flown on a total of 135 missions from 1981 to 2011.

United Space Alliance

United Space Alliance (USA) is a spaceflight operations company. USA is a joint venture which was established in August 1995 as a Limited Liability Company (LLC), equally owned by Boeing and Lockheed Martin.