Nationality American Name Robert Kimbrough Space agency NASA Mission insignia First space flight STS-126 | Selection 2004 NASA Group 19 Space missions STS-126 Status Active Role Astronaut Other occupation Army aviation | |
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Born June 4, 1967 (age 56)
Killeen, Texas ( 1967-06-04 ) Rank Colonel, Retired (United States), USA Time in space 15 days, 20 hours, 30 minutes, 34 seconds Education The Lovett School, Georgia Institute of Technology, United States Military Academy Similar People Stephen Bowen, Heidemarie Stefanyshyn‑Piper, Eric Boe, Sandra Magnus, Christopher Ferguson | ||
Robert Shane Kimbrough (born June 4, 1967) is a retired United States Army officer, and a NASA astronaut. He was part of the first group of candidates selected for NASA astronaut training following the Space Shuttle Columbia disaster. Kimbrough is a veteran of two spaceflights, the first being a Space Shuttle flight, and the second being a 6-month mission to the ISS on board a Russian Soyuz craft. He was the commander of the International Space Station for Expedition 50, and returned to Earth in April 2017.
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Biography
Born June 4, 1967, in Killeen, Texas, Kimbrough attended The Lovett School in Atlanta, Georgia, graduating in 1985. Kimbrough graduated from the United States Military Academy in 1989 with a B.S. in Aerospace Engineering, and served as an Apache helicopter pilot in the first Gulf War, Operation Desert Storm in 1991. Kimbrough later attended and graduated from Georgia Tech with a M.S. in Operations Research in 1998. He helped NASA train astronauts on landing procedures for several years before he himself was selected for training.
He retired from the U.S. Army with the rank of Colonel.
STS-126
Kimbrough was a Mission Specialist on STS-126, which launched on November 14, 2008. During the mission Kimbrough performed two EVAs. On the tenth anniversary of the International Space Station, Stefanyshyn-Piper and Kimbrough successfully conducted the mission's second EVA, and Kimbrough's first, which lasted 6 hours, 45 minutes. Kimbrough's second EVA was performed on November 24, 2008, and lasted 6 hours and 7 minutes. At the completion of the mission, Kimbrough's cumulative spacewalk time, was 12 hours, 52 minutes.
Expedition 49/50
Kimbrough launched onboard Soyuz MS-02 to the International Space Station on October 19, 2016 as part of a four-month mission for Expedition 49/50. Kimbrough became commander of Expedition 50 upon the departure of Soyuz MS-01 on October 28.
On January 6, 2017, Kimbrough performed his third EVA, along with Peggy Whitson. During the EVA, they installed three new adapter plates and hooked up electrical connectors preparing the way to replace the ISS batteries. The EVA lasted 6 hours and 32 minutes.
Kimbrough performed his fourth EVA with astronaut Thomas Pesquet on January 13, 2017. During the EVA, they prepared the infrastructure to replace the ISS batteries. The EVA lasted for 5 hours and 58 minutes.
On March 23 2017, Kimbrough performed his fifth EVA with Thomas Pesquet. The main objective was to prepare the Pressurized Mating Adapter-3 (PMA-3) for installation of the second International Docking Adapter (IDA), which will accommodate commercial crew vehicle dockings.The EVA lasted for 6 hours and 34 minutes.
On March 30, 2017 Kimbrough performed his sixth EVA with Peggy Whitson. During the EVA they connected the PMA-3 as well as installing new shields in Node 3 axial shields after losing one shield. Additionally installed another upgraded computer relay boxes on the station's truss. The EVA lasted 7 hours and 4 minutes. During this EVA Whitson became the record holder for the most EVAs for a woman (8 EVAs).