Bob Behnken

Robert Louis Behnken (/ˈbɛnkən/; born July 28, 1970) is an American engineer, a former NASA astronaut, 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 served before joining NASA in 2000. He flew aboard Space Shuttle missions STS-123 (2008) and STS-130 (2010) as a mission specialist, accumulating over 708 hours in space, including 55 hours of spacewalk time. He is married to fellow astronaut Megan McArthur.

Following retirement of the Space Shuttle, Behnken was Chief of the Astronaut Office from 2012 to 2015. Assigned to the SpaceX Dragon 2 in 2018 as part of NASA's Commercial Crew Program, Behnken launched aboard the spacecraft's first crewed mission with fellow astronaut Doug Hurley on May 30, 2020, and became one of the first two astronauts launching aboard a commercial orbital spacecraft in spaceflight history. The mission, Crew Dragon Demo-2, took Behnken and Hurley to the International Space Station (ISS), where they docked and stayed aboard for 62 days. Behnken completed four spacewalks with NASA astronaut Christopher Cassidy.

Behnken attended Pattonville High School in Maryland Heights, Missouri (in St. Louis County), and went on to earn Bachelor of Science degrees in mechanical engineering and physics from Washington University in St. Louis in 1992. He then attended the California Institute of Technology, where he earned an MS degree in 1993 and a PhD in 1997, both in mechanical engineering. While at Caltech he shared a doctoral advisor, Christopher E. Brennen, with another future NASA astronaut, Garrett Reisman.

Behnken's graduate thesis research was in the area of nonlinear control applied to stabilizing rotating stall and surge in axial-flow compressors. The research included nonlinear analysis, real-time software implementation development, and extensive hardware construction. During his first two years of graduate study, Behnken developed and implemented real-time control algorithms and hardware for flexible robotic manipulators.

Before entering graduate school, Behnken was an Air Force ROTC student at Washington University in St. Louis, and after graduate school was assigned to enter Air Force active duty at Eglin AFB, Florida. While at Eglin, he worked as a technical manager and developmental engineer for new munitions systems. Behnken was next assigned to attend the U.S. Air Force Test Pilot School Flight Test Engineer's course at Edwards AFB, California. After graduating, he was assigned to the F-22 Combined Test Force (CTF) and remained at Edwards. While assigned to the F-22 program, Behnken was the lead flight test engineer for Raptor 4004 and a special projects test director. These responsibilities included flight test sortie planning, control room configuration development, and test conduct. Behnken also flew in both the F-15 and F-16 aircraft in support of the F-22 flight test program.

Selected as an astronaut candidate by NASA in July 2000, Behnken reported for training in August 2000. Following the completion of 18 months of training and evaluation, he was assigned technical duties in the Astronaut Office Shuttle Operations Branch supporting launch and landing operations at Kennedy Space Center, Florida.

In September 2006, Behnken served as an aquanaut during the NEEMO 11 mission aboard the Aquarius underwater laboratory, living and working underwater for seven days.