Frederick W. Sturckow

Frederick Wilford Sturckow, known as Rick, is an American astronaut and test pilot born on 11 August 1961 in La Mesa, California. He earned a bachelor of science in mechanical engineering from California Polytechnic State University in 1984 and retired from the United States Marine Corps as a colonel. NASA selected him in group NASA-15 on 8 December 1994. He flew four Space Shuttle missions: as pilot on STS-88 Endeavour in 1998 and STS-105 Discovery in 2001, then as commander on STS-117 Atlantis in 2007 and STS-128 Discovery in 2009, for a total of just over 51 days in space. He served as Deputy Chief of the Astronaut Office and retired from NASA in March 2013. In May 2013 he joined Virgin Galactic, and he made the first SpaceShipTwo flight on 13 December 2018.