ABOUT

Mike Fincke was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, but considers its suburb Emsworth to be his hometown. He is a retired United States Air Force officer and an active NASA astronaut. So far he served two tours aboard the International Space Station as a flight engineer and commander. He flew on one Space Shuttle mission, STS-134 as a mission specialist. Fincke is conversant in Japanese and Russian. He is married to Renita Saikia, and together they have three children; son Chandra and daughters Tarali and Surya.

Fincke logged just under 382 days in space, placing him sixth among American astronauts for the most time in space, and 40th overall. He completed nine spacewalks in Russian Orlan spacesuits and American EMUs. His total EVA time is 48 hours and 37 minutes, placing him 14th all time on the list of spacewalkers.

The Pennsylvania native is the veteran of three spaceflights, Expedition 9 in 2004, Expedition 18 in 2009, and STS-134 in 2011. For Expedition 9, Fincke served as Science Officer and Flight Engineer during his six-month stay onboard the International Space Station. While there, he performed four spacewalks. For Expedition 18, Fincke served as Commander, where he and his crew prepared the station for future six-person crews. For STS-134, he served as Mission Specialist and completed three spacewalks.  Col. Fincke has logged more than a year in orbit, with nine space walks. 

After working with NASA’s Commercial Crew Program to develop and bring two new crewed spacecraft online, the Space-X Crew Dragon and the Boeing CST-100 Starliner, Fincke was selected to serve as pilot of NASA’s Boeing Starliner-1 Mission.