STS-128

Frederick W. Sturckow

• Birthday: 08/11/1961
• Role: Commander
• Nationality: American
• First Flight: 12/04/1998
• Last Flight: 01/26/2024

Frederick Wilford “Rick” Sturckow is an Engineer, retired United States Marine Corps officer, former NASA astronaut, and commercial spacecraft pilot. Sturckow is a veteran of four Space Shuttle missions. He flew on STS-88 and STS-105 as a pilot and STS-117 and STS-128 as a commander. All four missions docked with the International Space Station, making Sturckow one of two people to visit the station four times. Sturckow later was assigned to the Johnson Space Center as a CAPCOM. He left NASA in 2013 to become a pilot for Virgin Galactic.

Kevin A. Ford

• Birthday: 07/07/1960
• Role: Pilot
• Nationality: American
• First Flight: 08/29/2009
• Last Flight: 10/23/2012

Kevin Anthony Ford is a retired United States Air Force Colonel and a NASA astronaut. Ford has received a number of special honors and awards, some of which are the Air Force Meritorious Service Medal, Air Force Commendation Medal, Aerial Achievement Medal and the Armed Forces Expeditionary Medal. Ford has also logged more than 5,000 flying hours and also holds FAA commercial certificates for airplanes, helicopters and gliders. Ford has served in many roles at NASA since his selection in July 2000. The roles include as a Capsule Communicator or CAPCOM. He was also the Director Of Operations at the Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center in Star City, Russia from January 2004 to January 2005. He was pilot of STS-128 and Flight Engineer 2 of Soyuz TMA-06M from October 23, 2012 to March 16, 2013.

José Hernández

• Birthday: 09/07/1962
• Role: Mission Specialist
• Nationality: American
• First Flight: 08/29/2009
• Last Flight: 08/29/2009

José Moreno Hernández is an American engineer and former NASA astronaut. After three years and being turned down eleven times for astronaut training by NASA, Hernández was selected in May 2004. Hernández was assigned to the crew of Space Shuttle mission STS-128.

Christer Fuglesang

• Birthday: 03/18/1957
• Role: Mission Specialist
• Nationality: Swedish
• First Flight: 12/10/2006
• Last Flight: 08/29/2009

Arne Christer Fuglesang (born March 18, 1957 in Stockholm) is a Swedish physicist and an ESA astronaut. He was first launched aboard the STS-116 Space Shuttle mission on December 10, 2006, at 01:47 GMT, making him the first Swedish citizen in space.

Married with three children, he was a Fellow at CERN and taught mathematics at the Royal Institute of Technology before being selected to join the European Astronaut Corps in 1992. He has participated in two Space Shuttle missions and five spacewalks, and is the first person outside of the United States or Russian space programs to participate in more than three spacewalks.

John D. Olivas

• Birthday: 05/25/1966
• Role: Mission Specialist
• Nationality: American
• First Flight: 06/08/2007
• Last Flight: 08/29/2009

John Daniel “Danny” Olivas is an American engineer and a former NASA astronaut. Olivas has flown on two space shuttle missions, STS-117 and STS-128. He performed EVAs on both missions, totaling 34hrs 28min.

In 2013 Olivas joined the University of Texas at El Paso as Director of the Center for the Advancement of Space Safety and Mission Assurance Research (CASSMAR) and will oversee space initiatives on campus.

Nicole Stott

• Birthday: 11/19/1962
• Role: Mission Specialist
• Nationality: American
• First Flight: 08/29/2009
• Last Flight: 02/24/2011

Nicole Marie Passonno Stott is an American engineer and a NASA astronaut. She served as a Flight Engineer on ISS Expedition 20 and Expedition 21 and was a Mission Specialist on STS-128 and STS-133. After 27 years of working at NASA, the space agency announced her retirement effective June 1, 2015.

Patrick G. Forrester

• Birthday: 03/31/1957
• Role: Mission Specialist
• Nationality: American
• First Flight: 08/10/2001
• Last Flight: 08/29/2009

Patrick Graham Forrester is a retired United States Army officer and a NASA astronaut. At the time of his retirement from the U.S. Army, Forrester had achieved the rank of colonel. He is married and has two children.

Forrester has flown on three Space Shuttle missions, STS-105, STS-117 and STS-128. He is the current Chief of the Astronaut Office, having assumed the role from Chris Cassidy in June 2017.

STS-128

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

STS-128 (ISS assembly flight 17A) was a NASA Space Shuttle mission to the International Space Station (ISS) that launched on 28 August 2009. Space Shuttle Discovery carried the Multi-Purpose Logistics Module Leonardo as its primary payload. Leonardo contained a collection of experiments for studying the physics and chemistry of microgravity. Three spacewalks were carried out during the mission, which removed and replaced a materials processing experiment outside ESA’s Columbus module, and returned an empty ammonia tank assembly.

Launch Complex 39A

Kennedy Space Center, FL, USA

Launch Complex 39A has witnessed the launch of 173 rockets, including 172 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.