AE alumnus will command next shuttle mission

4/9/2013 Written by Rick Kubetz, College of Engineering

Veteran space flier and University of Illinois alumnus, Scott Altman will command the space shuttle Atlantis’ mission to service the Hubble Space Telescope.

Written by Written by Rick Kubetz, College of Engineering

Shuttle mission commander Scott Altman
Shuttle mission commander Scott Altman
Shuttle mission commander Scott Altman
Veteran space flier and University of Illinois alumnus, Scott Altman (BS 1981, Aerospace Engineering) will command the space shuttle Atlantis’ mission to service the Hubble Space Telescope. Atlantis is targeted to launch from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida on May 12 at 1:31 p.m. EDT.

Coincidentally, Altman is the second Illinois alumnus to command a space shuttle mission this year. In March 2009, Lee J. Archambault (BS, 1982; MS, 1984, Aerospace Engineering) served as mission commander for the 125th shuttle flight to the International Space Station.

Altman is one of seven astronauts who will fly on the space shuttle’s fifth and final servicing mission to Hubble. During the 11-day mission’s five spacewalks, astronauts will install two new instruments, repair two inactive ones, and perform the component replacements that will keep the telescope functioning into at least 2014.

Born in Lincoln, Illinois, Altman attended Pekin Community High School and received his bachelor’s degree from the University of Illinois in 1981. Following graduation, he was commissioned as an Ensign in the United States Navy, receiving his Navy wings of gold in February 1983. In August 1987, he was selected for the Naval Postgraduate School-Test Pilot School Coop program and graduated with Test Pilot School Class 97 in June 1990 as a Distinguished Graduate, spending the next two years as a test pilot on various F-14 projects.

Inside the White Room on Launch Pad 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida, STS-125 crew members get ready to affix the mission logo to the entrance into space shuttle Atlantis. Clockwise from left front are Pilot Gregory C. Johnson, Mission Specialists Michael Good and Megan McArthur, Commander Scott Altman, and Mission Specialists Mike Massimino and John Grunsfeld. Image credit: NASA/Cory Huston.
Inside the White Room on Launch Pad 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida, STS-125 crew members get ready to affix the mission logo to the entrance into space shuttle Atlantis. Clockwise from left front are Pilot Gregory C. Johnson, Mission Specialists Michael Good and Megan McArthur, Commander Scott Altman, and Mission Specialists Mike Massimino and John Grunsfeld. Image credit: NASA/Cory Huston.
Inside the White Room on Launch Pad 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida, STS-125 crew members get ready to affix the mission logo to the entrance into space shuttle Atlantis. Clockwise from left front are Pilot Gregory C. Johnson, Mission Specialists Michael Good and Megan McArthur, Commander Scott Altman, and Mission Specialists Mike Massimino and John Grunsfeld. Image credit: NASA/Cory Huston.

This will be Altman’s fourth shuttle flight since joining the space program in 1995. He has previously flown to the International Space Station and on an earlier Hubble Space Telescope servicing mission. (For Altman’s complete biography, click here.)

For the latest information about the Hubble servicing mission and crew, visitwww.nasa.gov/shuttle.


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This story was published April 9, 2013.