C. Michael Foale
Colin Michael Foale is a British-American astrophysicist and former NASA astronaut. Selected in NASA Astronaut Group 12 in 1987, he became one of the key astronauts connecting shuttle operations, Shuttle-Mir, Hubble servicing, and early ISS .
- Born
- January 6, 1957
- Died
- N/A
- Birthplace
- Louth, England,United Kingdom
Flights
6
Spacewalks
4
EVA time
16 hours, 44 minutes
In space
373 days, 18 hours, 18 minutes
Bio
Foale trained as a physicist before NASA and first flew on shuttle science and technology missions including STS-45 and STS-56. He later flew STS-63, the first shuttle with Mir, and STS-84, which delivered him to the Russian station.
His Mir stay became one of the most dramatic long-duration missions of the 1990s. During Mir EO-23, the station experienced a collision with Progress M-34 that damaged the Spektr module; Foale helped the crew stabilize operations and continue the mission.
Foale returned on STS-86, later flew STS-103 to service the Hubble Space Telescope, and then launched on Soyuz TMA-3 to command Expedition 8 aboard the ISS. That gave him extended experience on both Mir and the International . He held major cumulative-duration records for American and British space travelers.