Engineering alum Behnken to test flight commercial spacecraft
Engineering alumnus Bob Behnken will test fly American-made commercial spacecraft
Engineering alumnus Bob Behnken has been chosen as one of NASA's astronauts who will fly American-made, commercial spacecraft to and from the International Space Station.
Behnken, a St. Louis native who earned two bachelor's degrees in Engineering at WashU in 1992, was chosen as one of two astronauts to fly test flights on the Crew Dragon, designed by SpaceX.
He is a flight test engineer and colonel in the Air Force and joined the astronaut corps in 2000. He flew aboard space shuttle Endeavour twice, for the STS-123 and STS-130 missions, during which he performed six spacewalks totaling more than 37 hours. This mission will return astronaut launches to U.S. soil for the first time since the space shuttle was retired in 2011.
Behnken earned a master's and a doctorate from California Institute of Technology.
