Katherine Megan McArthur (born August 30, 1971) is an American

oceanographer Oceanography (), also known as oceanology and ocean science, is the scientific study of the oceans. It is an Earth science, which covers a wide range of topics, including ecosystem dynamics; ocean currents, waves, and geophysical fluid dynamics ...

engineer Engineers, as practitioners of engineering, are professionals who invent, design, analyze, build and test machines, complex systems, structures, gadgets and materials to fulfill functional objectives and requirements while considering the l ...

, and

NASA The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA ) is an independent agency of the US federal government responsible for the civil space program, aeronautics research, and space research. NASA was established in 1958, succeeding t ...

astronaut An astronaut (from the Ancient Greek (), meaning 'star', and (), meaning 'sailor') is a person trained, equipped, and deployed by a human spaceflight program to serve as a commander or crew member aboard a spacecraft. Although generally r ...

. She has served as a

Capsule Communicator Flight controllers are personnel who aid space flight by working in such Mission Control Centers as NASA's Mission Control Center or ESA's European Space Operations Centre. Flight controllers work at computer consoles and use telemetry to mon ...

(CAPCOM) for both the

Space Shuttle The Space Shuttle is a retired, partially 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. Its official program na ...

and

International Space Station The International Space Station (ISS) is the largest modular space station currently in low Earth orbit. It is a multinational collaborative project involving five participating space agencies: NASA (United States), Roscosmos (Russia), JAXA ...

(ISS). Megan McArthur has flown one Space Shuttle mission,

STS-125 STS-125, or HST-SM4 (Hubble Space Telescope Servicing Mission 4), was the fifth and final Space Shuttle mission to the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) and the last solo flight of the Space Shuttle Atlantis, Space Shuttle ''Atlantis''. The launch of ...

and one SpaceX mission,

SpaceX Crew-2 SpaceX Crew-2 was the second operational flight of a Crew Dragon spacecraft, and the third overall crewed orbital flight of the Commercial Crew Program. The mission was launched on 23 April 2021 at 09:49:02 UTC, and docked to the Internationa ...

on Crew Dragon ''Endeavour''. She is known as the last person to be hands on with the

Hubble Space Telescope The Hubble Space Telescope (often referred to as HST or Hubble) is a space telescope that was launched into low Earth orbit in 1990 and remains in operation. It was not the first space telescope, but it is one of the largest and most versa ...

via the

Canadarm Canadarm or Canadarm1 (officially Shuttle Remote Manipulator System or SRMS, also SSRMS) is a series of robotic arms that were used on the Space Shuttle orbiters to deploy, manoeuvre, and capture payloads. After the Space Shuttle ''Columbia' ...

. McArthur has served in a number of positions including working in the Shuttle Avionics Laboratory (SAIL). She is married to fellow astronaut Robert L. Behnken.

Early life

McArthur was born in

Honolulu, Hawaii Honolulu (; ) is the capital and largest city of the U.S. state of Hawaii, which is in the Pacific Ocean. It is an unincorporated county seat of the consolidated City and County of Honolulu, situated along the southeast coast of the island o ...

but grew up in

California California is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States, located along the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the List of states and territori ...

. She attended

London Central High School London Central Elementary High School (LCEHS), formerly London Central High School, was a United States Department of Defense Dependents School (DoDDS) in the Isles District of DoDDS Europe for pupils in kindergarten through grade 12. It operated ...

and graduated from St. Francis High School in

Mountain View, California Mountain View is a city in Santa Clara County, California, United States. Named for its views of the Santa Cruz Mountains, it has a population of 82,376. Mountain View was integral to the early history and growth of Silicon Valley, and is the ...

, then later earned a B.S. 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 si ...

at the

University of California, Los Angeles The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) is a public land-grant research university in Los Angeles, California. UCLA's academic roots were established in 1881 as a teachers college then known as the southern branch of the California St ...

in 1993. In 2002, she was awarded a Ph.D. in

oceanography Oceanography (), also known as oceanology and ocean science, is the scientific study of the oceans. It is an Earth science, which covers a wide range of topics, including ecosystem dynamics; ocean currents, waves, and geophysical fluid dynamic ...

from

Scripps Institution of Oceanography The Scripps Institution of Oceanography (sometimes referred to as SIO, Scripps Oceanography, or Scripps) in San Diego, California, US founded in 1903, is one of the oldest and largest centers for oceanography, ocean and Earth science research ...

at the

University of California, San Diego The University of California, San Diego (UC San Diego or colloquially, UCSD) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in San Diego, California. Established in 1960 near the pre-existing Scripps Insti ...

Oceanography career

At the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, McArthur conducted graduate research in nearshore underwater acoustic propagation and

digital signal processing Digital signal processing (DSP) is the use of digital processing, such as by computers or more specialized digital signal processors, to perform a wide variety of signal processing operations. The digital signals processed in this manner are ...

. Her research focused on determining geoacoustic models to describe very shallow water waveguides using measured transmission loss data in a

genetic algorithm In computer science and operations research, a genetic algorithm (GA) is a metaheuristic inspired by the process of natural selection that belongs to the larger class of evolutionary algorithms (EA). Genetic algorithms are commonly used to gene ...

inversion technique. She served as chief scientist during at-sea data collection operations and has planned and led diving operations during sea-floor instrument deployments and sediment-sample collections. While at Scripps, she participated in a range of in-water instrument testing, deployment, maintenance, and recovery, and collection of marine plants, animals, and sediment. During this time, McArthur also volunteered at the

Birch Aquarium at Scripps Birch Aquarium at Scripps (sometimes referred to as Scripps Aquarium or Birch Aquarium) is an aquarium and the public outreach center for Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California, San Diego. Accredited by the Associatio ...

, conducting educational demonstrations for the public from inside a 70,000-gallon (265 m³) exhibit tank of the California Kelp Forest.

NASA career

Selected as a mission specialist by NASA in July 2000, McArthur reported for training in August 2000. She trained at the

Sonny Carter Training Facility The Neutral Buoyancy Laboratory (NBL) is an astronaut training facility and neutral buoyancy pool operated by NASA and located at the Sonny Carter Training Facility, near the Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas. The NBL's main feature is a l ...

. Following the completion of two years of training and evaluation, she was assigned to the Astronaut Office Shuttle Operations Branch working technical issues on shuttle systems in the

Shuttle Avionics Integration Laboratory The Shuttle Avionics Integration Laboratory (SAIL) was a facility at Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas. It was the only facility in the Space Shuttle Program where actual orbiter hardware and flight software can be integrated and ...

(SAIL). McArthur then served as the Crew Support Astronaut for the

Expedition 9 Expedition 9 (2004) was the ninth expedition to the International Space Station (21 April 2004 - 23 October 2004). Crew Planned crew before ''Columbia'' disaster Mission parameters *Perigee: 384 km *Apogee: 396 km *Inclination: ...

crew during their six-month mission aboard the

(ISS). She also worked in the Space Station and Space Shuttle Mission Control Centers as a

(CAPCOM). In 2006, McArthur was the CAPCOM for

STS-116 STS-116 was a Space Shuttle mission to the International Space Station (ISS) flown by Space Shuttle '' Discovery''. ''Discovery'' lifted off on 9 December 2006 at 20:47:35 EST. A previous launch attempt on 7 December had been canceled due to cl ...

. She was also the EVA capcom for the

STS-117 STS-117 ( ISS assembly flight 13A) was a Space Shuttle mission flown by Space Shuttle ''Atlantis'', launched from pad 39A of the Kennedy Space Center on 8 June 2007. ''Atlantis'' lifted off from the launch pad at 19:38 EDT. Damage from a hail ...

mission in 2007.

STS-125

In 2009, Megan McArthur was a member of the

mission to service the

. McArthur was the ascent and entry flight engineer and was the lead robotics crew member for the mission. The mission which lasted almost 13 days was McArthur's first trip into space. In a pre-flight interview, she put it as: "I'll be the last one with hands on the Hubble Space Telescope." In 2019, McArthur was appointed Deputy Chief of the Astronaut Office.

Expedition 65/66

In July 2020, NASA announced that McArthur would fly into space for the second time on

, along with NASA astronaut

Shane Kimbrough Robert Shane Kimbrough (born June 4, 1967) is a retired United States Army officer and NASA astronaut. He was part of the first group of candidates selected for NASA astronaut training following the Space Shuttle ''Columbia'' disaster. Kimbrou ...

JAXA The is the Japanese national air and space agency. Through the merger of three previously independent organizations, JAXA was formed on 1 October 2003. JAXA is responsible for research, technology development and launch of satellites into orb ...

astronaut Akihiko Hoshide, and

ESA , owners = , headquarters = Paris, Île-de-France, France , coordinates = , spaceport = Guiana Space Centre , seal = File:ESA emblem seal.png , seal_size = 130px , image = Views in the Main Control Room (120 ...

astronaut

Thomas Pesquet Thomas Gautier Pesquet (; born 27 February 1978 in Rouen) is a French aerospace engineer, pilot, and European Space Agency astronaut. Pesquet was selected by ESA as a candidate in May 2009, and he successfully completed his basic training in Nov ...

. She used the same seat inside the

SpaceX Space Exploration Technologies Corp. (SpaceX) is an American spacecraft manufacturer, launcher, and a satellite communications corporation headquartered in Hawthorne, California. It was founded in 2002 by Elon Musk with the stated goal of ...

Crew Dragon Dragon 2 is a class of partially reusable spacecraft developed and manufactured by American aerospace manufacturer SpaceX, primarily for flights to the International Space Station (ISS). SpaceX has also launched private missions such as Ins ...

capsule ''Endeavour'' which her husband,

Bob Behnken Robert Louis Behnken (; born July 28, 1970, in St. Ann, Missouri) is a NASA astronaut, engineer, and former Chief of the Astronaut Office. Behnken holds a Ph.D in mechanical engineering and the rank of colonel in the U.S. Air Force, where he s ...

used in

SpaceX Demo-2 Crew Dragon Demo-2 (officially Crew Demo-2, SpaceX Demo-2, or Demonstration Mission-2) was the first crewed test flight of the Crew Dragon spacecraft. The spacecraft, named '' Endeavour'', launched on 30 May 2020 on a Falcon 9 booster, and ca ...

, the first mission of the ''Endeavour'' capsule. Crew-2 launched and docked with the ISS in April 2021, beginning their 6 month mission. It splashed down in the

Gulf of Mexico The Gulf of Mexico ( es, Golfo de México) is an oceanic basin, ocean basin and a marginal sea of the Atlantic Ocean, largely surrounded by the North American continent. It is bounded on the northeast, north and northwest by the Gulf Coast of ...

in November 2021.

Awards and honours

In 2022, SpaceX's Dragon support vessel ''

GO Searcher ''Megan'', formerly called ''GO Searcher'' is a SpaceX Dragon recovery vessel. It is one of the offshore supply ships operated by Guice Offshore. The other identical ship is '' Shannon''. History ''Megan'' is the primary recovery vessel for t ...

'' was renamed ''

Megan Megan is a Welsh feminine given name, originally a diminutive form of Margaret. Margaret is from the Greek μαργαρίτης (''margarítēs''), Latin ''margarīta'', "pearl". Megan is one of the most popular Welsh-language names for women in ...

'' along with ''

GO Navigator ''Shannon'', formerly called ''GO Navigator'', is an offshore supply ship owned and operated by Guice Offshore, and currently deployed as one of the SpaceX Dragon/Dragon 2 recovery vessels along with ''Megan''. Both the vessels are identical and ...

'' as '' Shannon'' after

SpaceX Crew-1 SpaceX Crew-1 (was also known as USCV-1 or simply Crew-1) was the first operational crewed flight of a Crew Dragon spacecraft, and the maiden flight of the Crew Dragon ''Resilience'' spacecraft. It was also the second crewed orbital flight l ...

astronaut,

Shannon Walker Shannon Walker (born June 4, 1965) is an American physicist and a NASA astronaut selected in 2004. She launched on her first mission into space on June 25, 2010, onboard Soyuz TMA-19 and spent over 163 days in space. She returned to space for ...

. A SpaceX fairing recovery/ droneship support vessel was named after her husband as ''

Bob Bob, BOB, or B.O.B. may refer to: Places * Mount Bob, New York, United States *Bob Island, Palmer Archipelago, Antarctica People, fictional characters, and named animals *Bob (given name), a list of people and fictional characters *Bob (surname ...

'' in 2021.

Personal life

McArthur is married to fellow astronaut

, and they have one son named Theodore "Theo" Behnken. She appeared as an animated version of herself in season 4 of ''

Blaze and the Monster Machines ''Blaze and the Monster Machines'' is a computer-animated interactive children's television series with a focus on teaching science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) that premiered on Nickelodeon on October 13, 2014. The series r ...

''.

References

External links

NASA biography of K. Megan McArthur
March 2016

* {{DEFAULTSORT:McArthur, Katherine Megan American astronauts Aquanauts Women astronauts 1971 births Living people People from Honolulu American oceanographers UCLA Henry Samueli School of Engineering and Applied Science alumni University of California, San Diego alumni Space Shuttle program astronauts SpaceX astronauts