Robert Lee Curbeam Jr. (born March 5, 1962) is a former

NASA The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA ) is an independent agencies of the United States government, independent agency of the federal government of the United States, US federal government responsible for the United States ...

astronaut An astronaut (from the Ancient Greek (), meaning 'star', and (), meaning 'sailor') is a person trained, equipped, and deployed by a List of human spaceflight programs, human spaceflight program to serve as a commander or crew member of a spa ...

and

captain Captain is a title, an appellative for the commanding officer of a military unit; the supreme leader or highest rank officer of a navy ship, merchant ship, aeroplane, spacecraft, or other vessel; or the commander of a port, fire or police depa ...

in the

United States Navy The United States Navy (USN) is the naval warfare, maritime military branch, service branch of the United States Department of Defense. It is the world's most powerful navy with the largest Displacement (ship), displacement, at 4.5 millio ...

. He currently holds the record for the most spacewalks during a single spaceflight, accomplished during the

STS-116 STS-116 (also known as ISS-12A) was a Space Shuttle mission to the International Space Station (ISS) flown by Space Shuttle Discovery, Space Shuttle '' Discovery''. ''Discovery'' lifted off on December 9, 2006 for her 33rd flight at 20:47:35 Easte ...

mission, when Curbeam completed four spacewalks.

Education

Curbeam graduated from Woodlawn High School,

Baltimore County Baltimore County ( , locally: or ) is the third-most populous county in the U.S. state of Maryland. The county is part of the Central Maryland region of the state. Baltimore County partly surrounds but does not include the independent city ...

, Maryland in 1980. He earned a

Bachelor of Science A Bachelor of Science (BS, BSc, B.S., B.Sc., SB, or ScB; from the Latin ') is a bachelor's degree that is awarded for programs that generally last three to five years. The first university to admit a student to the degree of Bachelor of Scienc ...

degree in

Aerospace Engineering Aerospace engineering is the primary field of engineering concerned with the development of aircraft and spacecraft. It has two major and overlapping branches: aeronautical engineering and astronautical engineering. Avionics engineering is s ...

from the

United States Naval Academy The United States Naval Academy (USNA, Navy, or Annapolis) is a United States Service academies, federal service academy in Annapolis, Maryland. It was established on 10 October 1845 during the tenure of George Bancroft as United States Secre ...

in 1984, a

Master of Science A Master of Science (; abbreviated MS, M.S., MSc, M.Sc., SM, S.M., ScM or Sc.M.) is a master's degree. In contrast to the Master of Arts degree, the Master of Science degree is typically granted for studies in sciences, engineering and medici ...

degree in

Aeronautical Engineering Aerospace engineering is the primary field of engineering concerned with the development of aircraft and spacecraft. It has two major and overlapping branches: aeronautical engineering and astronautical engineering. Avionics engineering is s ...

from the

Naval Postgraduate School Naval Postgraduate School (NPS) is a Naval command with a graduate university mission, operated by the United States Navy and located in Monterey, California. The NPS mission is to provide "defense-focused graduate education, including clas ...

in 1990, and a master's degree in Astronautical Engineering from the Naval Postgraduate School in 1991. Curbeam was named Fighter Wing One Radar Intercept Officer of the Year in 1989 and received the U.S. Naval Test Pilot School Best Developmental Thesis (DT-II) Award.

Naval career

Upon graduation from the U.S. Naval Academy, Curbeam commenced Naval Flight Officer training in 1984. In 1986 he reported to Fighter Squadron 11 (

VF-11 Fighter Squadron 11 or VF-11 was an aviation unit of the United States Navy. It was originally established as VF-5 on 1 February 1927, redesignated as VF-5S on 1 July 1927, redesignated as VF-5B in January 1928, redesignated VB-1B on 1 July 1928, ...

) and made overseas deployments on board the

aircraft carrier An aircraft carrier is a warship that serves as a seagoing airbase, equipped with a full-length flight deck and hangar facilities for supporting, arming, deploying and recovering carrier-based aircraft, shipborne aircraft. Typically it is the ...

. During his tour in VF-11, he also attended the Navy Fighter Weapons School. Upon graduation of

United States Naval Test Pilot School The United States Naval Test Pilot School (USNTPS), located at Naval Air Station (NAS) Patuxent River in Patuxent River, Maryland, provides instruction to experienced United States Navy, Marine Corps, Army, Air Force, and foreign military experim ...

in December 1991, he reported to the Strike Aircraft Test Directorate, where he was the project officer for the

F-14 The Grumman F-14 Tomcat is an American carrier-capable supersonic aircraft, supersonic, twinjet, twin-engine, Tandem#Aviation, tandem two-seat, twin-tail, all-weather-capable variable-sweep wing fighter aircraft. The Tomcat was developed for t ...

A/B Air-to-Ground Weapons Separation Program. In August 1994, he returned to the U.S. Naval Academy as an instructor in the Weapons and Systems Engineering Department.

NASA career

Selected by NASA in December 1994, Curbeam reported to the

Johnson Space Center The Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center (JSC) is NASA's center for human spaceflight in Houston, Texas (originally named the Manned Spacecraft Center), where human spaceflight training, research, and flight controller, flight control are conducted. ...

in March 1995. After completing a year of training and evaluation, he was assigned to the Computer Support Branch in the Astronaut Office. He is a veteran of three space flights: STS-85 in 1997,

STS-98 STS-98 was a 2001 Space Shuttle mission to the International Space Station (ISS) flown by Space Shuttle Atlantis, Space Shuttle '' Atlantis''. It was the first human spaceflight launch of the 21st century. STS-98 delivered to the station the Dest ...

in 2001,

in 2006, and has logged over 901 hours in space, including over 45 hours during three spacewalks. Between the first two flights, Curbeam was a spacecraft communicator (

CAPCOM is a Japanese video game company. It has created a number of critically acclaimed and List of best-selling video game franchises, multi-million-selling game franchises, with its most commercially successful being ''Resident Evil'', ''Monster ...

) responsible for relaying all voice communication between Mission Control and crews aboard the

Space Shuttle The Space Shuttle is a retired, partially reusable launch system, reusable low Earth orbital spacecraft system operated from 1981 to 2011 by the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) as part of the Space Shuttle program. ...

and

International Space Station The International Space Station (ISS) is a large space station that was Assembly of the International Space Station, assembled and is maintained in low Earth orbit by a collaboration of five space agencies and their contractors: NASA (United ...

. After his second flight, he also was the CAPCOM Branch Chief. During the spring of 2002, he was Deputy Associate Administrator for Safety and Mission Assurance, at NASA Headquarters,

Washington, D.C. Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly known as Washington or D.C., is the capital city and federal district of the United States. The city is on the Potomac River, across from Virginia, and shares land borders with ...

Spaceflight experience

STS-85 (August 7–19, 1997) was a 12-day mission during which the crew deployed and retrieved the CRISTA-SPAS payload, operated the Japanese Manipulator Flight Demonstration (MFD) robotic arm, studied changes in the

Earth's atmosphere The atmosphere of Earth is composed of a layer of gas mixture that surrounds the Earth's planetary surface (both lands and oceans), known collectively as air, with variable quantities of suspended aerosols and particulates (which create weathe ...

, and tested technology destined for use on the future

(February 7–20, 2001) continued the task of building and enhancing the

by delivering the U.S. laboratory module

Destiny Destiny, sometimes also called fate (), is a predetermined course of events. It may be conceived as a predetermined future, whether in general or of an individual. Fate Although often used interchangeably, the words ''fate'' and ''destiny'' ...

. The Shuttle spent seven days docked to the station while Destiny was attached. In helping to complete its assembly, Curbeam logged over 19 EVA hours in 3 space walks. STS-116 Solar Panel Spacewalk

(December 9–22, 2006) was a mission to the International Space Station. The mission involved the installation of a new truss segment and the rewiring of the station's electrical system. During the mission, Curbeam was the EVA crewmember for the record-breaking four spacewalks, three of which were conducted along with astronaut

Christer Fuglesang Arne Christer Fuglesang (born 18 March 1957) is a Swedish physicist and an ESA astronaut. He was first launched aboard the STS-116 Space Shuttle mission on 10 December 2006, making him the first Swedish citizen in space. Married with three child ...

(Sweden) and one along with astronaut Sunita Williams.

Post-NASA career

On December 7, 2007, NASA announced that Curbeam had chosen to leave NASA after 13 years, to pursue a job in the private sector. He presently works for Northrop Grumman Innovation Systems as the Senior Director of Business Development in Virginia. Having played lacrosse as a student athlete at the Naval Academy, Curbeam became an assistant coach for the boys lacrosse team at Clear Lake High School in Houston, Texas. In 2011, Curbeam led Clear Lake to the semifinal match of the Texas High School Lacrosse League South District Championship game.

References

External links

Spacefacts biography of Robert Curbeam
{{DEFAULTSORT:Curbeam, Robert 1962 births Living people 21st-century American engineers American test pilots Aviators from Maryland Naval Postgraduate School alumni People from Baltimore United States Naval Academy alumni United States Naval Flight Officers United States Naval Test Pilot School alumni United States Navy astronauts Space Shuttle program astronauts Spacewalkers