Mission Specialist

A Mission Specialist (MS) is a position held by certain NASA astronauts during Space Shuttle missions. A Mission Specialist is assigned to a limited field of the mission, such as for medical experiments or technical quests.

Other functions on board are Pilot, Flight Engineer and Mission Commander. Some Space Shuttle missions included Payload Specialists in addition to Mission Specialists. While a Payload Specialist was selected for a single specific mission, a Mission Specialist was selected as an astronaut first, and then assigned to a mission.

Mission Specialist is abbreviated by NASA as MS.

National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA)

Policy and history

NACA
National Aeronautics and Space Act
Paine
Rogers
Ride
Space Exploration Initiative
Augustine
U.S. National Space Policy
CFUSAI
CAIB
Vision for Space Exploration
Aldridge
Augustine
General: Space Race
Administrator and Deputy Administrator
Chief Scientist
Astronaut Corps
Budget
Spin-off technologies
NASA TV

Robotic programs

Past	Hitchhiker Mariner Mariner Mark II MESUR Mars Surveyor '98 New Millennium Lunar Orbiter Pioneer Planetary Observer Ranger Surveyor Viking Project Prometheus

Current	Living With a Star Lunar Precursor Robotic Program Earth Observing System Great Observatories program Explorer Small explorer Voyager Discovery New Frontiers Mars Exploration Rover Mars Scout

Human spaceflight
programs

Past	X-15 Mercury Gemini Apollo Apollo–Soyuz Test Project Skylab Shuttle–Mir Space Shuttle program Constellation program

Current	International Space Station program

Future/planned	Commercial Orbital Transportation Services (COTS) Commercial Crew Development (CCDev)

Individual
featured missions

Past	COBE Apollo 11 Mercury 3 Mercury 6 Magellan Pioneer 10/11 Voyager 1/2 Galileo WMAP WISE Space Shuttle

Currently operating	MRO Mars Odyssey MESSENGER Dawn New Horizons Kepler International Space Station Hubble Space Telescope Spitzer RHESSI SWIFT GALEX THEMIS Mars Exploration Rover Cassini GOES 14 Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter GOES 15 RBSP SDO Aquarius Juno GRAIL MSL NuSTAR

Future	NPP James Webb Space Telescope MAVEN WFIRST InSight OSIRIS-REx MMS Unnamed 2020 rover

Space Comm and Nav (SCaN)

Space Network
Near Earth Network
Deep Space Network (Goldstone
Madrid
Canberra)

NASA categories
and lists

NASA personnel
NASA programs
NASA probes
NASA images
NASA Social (formerly Tweetup)
NASA
List of NASA Astronaut Groups
List of astronauts by selection
List of NASA aircraft
List of NASA missions
List of NASA contractors

Famous quotes containing the words mission and/or specialist:

“The mission of men there seems to be, like so many busy demons, to drive the forest all out of the country, from every solitary beaver swamp and mountain-side, as soon as possible.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)

“As a thinker and planner, the ant is the equal of any savage race of men; as a self-educated specialist in several arts, she is the superior of any savage race of men; and in one or two high mental qualities she is above the reach of any man, savage or civilized.”
—Mark Twain [Samuel Langhorne Clemens] (1835–1910)