Stephen Gerard "Steve" Bowen (born February 13, 1964) is a

United States Navy The United States Navy (USN) is the maritime service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the eight uniformed services of the United States. It is the largest and most powerful navy in the world, with the estimated tonnage ...

submarine A submarine (or sub) is a watercraft capable of independent operation underwater. It differs from a submersible, which has more limited underwater capability. The term is also sometimes used historically or colloquially to refer to remotely op ...

r and a

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 ...

; he was the second submariner to travel into space. Bowen has been on three

spaceflight Spaceflight (or space flight) is an application of astronautics to fly spacecraft into or through outer space, either with or without humans on board. Most spaceflight is uncrewed and conducted mainly with spacecraft such as satellites in or ...

s, all of which were

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 ...

missions to the

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 ...

. His first mission,

STS-126 STS-126 was the one hundred and twenty-fourth NASA Space Shuttle mission, and twenty-second orbital flight of the ''Space Shuttle Endeavour'' (OV-105) to the International Space Station (ISS). The purpose of the mission, referred to as ULF2 by ...

, took place in November 2008, and his second was STS-132 in May 2010. In March 2011, Bowen completed his third spaceflight as a Mission Specialist on STS-133, which was Space Shuttle ''Discovery'''s final planned flight. Having flown on both STS-132 and STS-133, he became the first and only astronaut to fly on consecutive shuttle missions. Originally

Tim Kopra Timothy Lennart "Tim" Kopra (born April 9, 1963) is an engineer, a Colonel in the United States Army and a retired NASA astronaut. He served aboard the International Space Station as a flight engineer for Expedition 20, returning to Earth aboar ...

was scheduled to fly on STS-133, but had a bicycle injury shortly before the mission, and so he was replaced by Bowen. On December 16, 2021, NASA assigned Bowen as commander of

SpaceX Crew-6 SpaceX Crew-6 is the sixth crewed operational NASA Commercial Crew flight of a Crew Dragon spacecraft, and the ninth overall crewed orbital flight. The mission launched on 2 March 2023 at 05:34:14 UTC, and it successfully docked to the Inter ...

mission to the ISS, scheduled to launch in 2023.

Personal life and early education

Bowen resides in Friendswood, Texas. He is married to Deborah Alden; they have three children. He graduated from Cohasset High School, Cohasset, Massachusetts in 1982, received a B.S. in

Electrical Engineering Electrical engineering is an engineering discipline concerned with the study, design, and application of equipment, devices, and systems which use electricity, electronics, and electromagnetism. It emerged as an identifiable occupation in the l ...

from the

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

in 1986 and received an M.S. in Ocean Engineering from the

Massachusetts Institute of Technology The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a private land-grant research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Established in 1861, MIT has played a key role in the development of modern technology and science, and is one of the ...

in 1993. He is a member of

Tau Beta Pi The Tau Beta Pi Association (commonly Tau Beta Pi, , or TBP) is the oldest engineering honor society and the second oldest collegiate honor society in the United States. It honors engineering students in American universities who have shown a ...

Phi Kappa Phi The Honor Society of Phi Kappa Phi (or simply Phi Kappa Phi or ) is an honor society established in 1897 to recognize and encourage superior scholarship without restriction as to area of study, and to promote the "unity and democracy of education ...

and

Sigma Pi Sigma Sigma Pi Sigma (), founded at Davidson College on December 11, 1921, is the oldest and only American honor society for physics and astronomy. It is an organization within the Society of Physics Students and the American Institute of Physics and ...

. In his spare time, Stephen Bowen has also had connections with the organisation ISSET, through him being the resident astronaut during a few of their

Mission Discovery Mission Discovery is an international education program run for teenagers in many countries around the world. The programme started in 2011 in King's College London, England, and has since expanded to Australia, the US, India and other countries ...

programs. Here he shares his experiences with students as well as try to teach them new skills and influence them to maybe follow a career in the sciences.

Military career

Upon completion of the submarine training pipeline, Bowen spent three years attached to and completed qualification in submarines on . After attending the MIT/WHOI Joint Program in Ocean Engineering he reported to for duty as the Engineering Officer. During this tour, he qualified for command of nuclear powered submarines. In 1997, he reported to the United States Special Operations Command (USSOCOM) in the Office of Plans and Policy and worked on the USSOCOM Future Concepts Working Group. For nine months in 1999, he was the Reactor and Propulsion inspector for the Navy's Submarine Board of Inspection and Survey (INSURV). In May 2000 he became the first Executive Officer of the Pre-Commissioning Unit , the first of the new s.

NASA career

Bowen is the first Submarine Officer selected by NASA. He was selected as an astronaut candidate in July 2000, as one of NASA's Astronaut Group 18. He reported for training at the Johnson Space Center in August 2000. Following the completion of two years of training and evaluation, he was initially assigned technical duties in the Astronaut Office Station Operations Branch while awaiting assignment to a Shuttle flight as a Mission Specialist. Bowen was originally assigned to

STS-124 STS-124 was a Space Shuttle mission, flown by Space Shuttle ''Discovery'' to the International Space Station. ''Discovery'' launched on 31 May 2008 at 17:02 EDT, moved from an earlier scheduled launch date of 25 May 2008, and landed safely at t ...

but was moved to a later flight to allow the Shuttle to rotate an ISS crew member. Iss018e009339

STS-126

Bowen was then assigned to the crew of

, aboard Space Shuttle ''Endeavour'', which launched November 14, 2008, to the

. STS-126 carried a reusable logistics module that held supplies and equipment, including additional crew quarters, exercise apparatus, equipment for the regenerative life support system, and spare hardware. During STS-126, Bowen participated in three spacewalks, for a total time of 19 hours, 56 minutes.

STS-132

Bowen's next mission was STS-132, aboard Space Shuttle ''Atlantis'', which launched on May 14, 2010, to the ISS. While docked to the station, Bowen conducted two spacewalks and logged 14 hours and 34 minutes of EVA time.

STS-133

On January 19, 2011, Bowen was named as the replacement for

Timothy L. Kopra Timothy Lennart "Tim" Kopra (born April 9, 1963) is an engineer, a Colonel in the United States Army and a retired NASA astronaut. He served aboard the International Space Station as a flight engineer for Expedition 20, returning to Earth aboard ...

on STS-133. Kopra was injured in a bicycle accident, preventing him from flying on the mission. With this mission, Bowen became the first and only astronaut to fly on consecutive Shuttle missions. George Nelson was the first astronaut to fly consecutive Space Shuttle missions in which the Shuttle landed successfully ( STS-61-C and STS-26), having the Space Shuttle ''Challenger'' disaster between his missions. Bowen conducted two spacewalks and logged 12 hours and 48 minutes of EVA time.

Awards and honors

* Defense Meritorious Service Medal * Navy Commendation Medals (3) * Navy Achievement Medals (2)

References

External links

Spacefacts biography of Stephen G. Bowen
{{DEFAULTSORT:Bowen, Stephen 1964 births Living people United States Navy astronauts People from Cohasset, Massachusetts United States Naval Academy alumni MIT School of Engineering alumni United States Navy officers Submariners Space Shuttle program astronauts Cohasset High School alumni Spacewalkers Military personnel from Massachusetts