Steven Smith (astronaut) - NASA Career

NASA Career

Steve Smith is a veteran of four space flights covering 16 million miles and seven space walks totaling 49 hours and 25 minutes. Smith’s spacewalk time places him in the top five on the all-time American and World spacewalk duration lists. He joined NASA in 1989 in the Mission Operations Directorate. As a payload officer, his duties included preflight payload integration and real-time flight controller support in Mission Control. He was selected as an astronaut candidate by NASA in 1992 and then completed one year of astronaut candidate training.

In September 1993, Smith became the first member of the 1992 astronaut class to receive a flight assignment. He has served as the Astronaut Office representative for the Space Shuttle Main Engines, the solid rocket boosters, the external tank, and shuttle safety. Smith was also assigned to duties at the Kennedy Space Center for a year and a half as a member of the astronaut support team. The team was responsible for space shuttle prelaunch vehicle checkout, crew ingress and strap-in prior to launch, and crew egress post landing. After STS-103, he served as the Deputy Chief Astronaut for a year.

Smith completed an assignment serving as the NASA Automated Transfer Vehicle (ATV) Launch Package Manager for the ISS Program, and currently serves as the NASA International Space Station Program Liaison to the European Space Agency.