Richard Mastracchio

Richard Alan "Rick" Mastracchio (born February 11, 1960) is an American engineer and a retired NASA astronaut. He has flown on three NASA Space Shuttle missions as a mission specialist in addition to serving as a Flight Engineer on the Soyuz TMA-11M (Expedition 38/Expedition 39) long duration mission aboard the International Space Station.

Personal

Richard Mastracchio was born in Waterbury, Connecticut and graduated from Crosby High School in 1978. He received a Bachelor of Science degree in electrical engineering/computer science from the University of Connecticut in 1982, a Master of Science degree in electrical engineering from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in 1987, and a Master of Science degree in physical science from the University of Houston–Clear Lake in 1991.

He is a member of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers.

Engineering career

Mastracchio worked for Hamilton Standard in Connecticut as an engineer in the system design group from 1982 until 1987. During that time, he participated in the development of high performance, inertial measurement units and flight control computers.