page_title: Jeffrey Ashby
section_title: Naval career
hierarchical_section_title: Jeffrey Ashby / Naval career
caption_attribution_description: English: KENNEDY SPACE CENTER, FLA. In the White Room at Launch Pad 39B, STS-112 Commander Jeffrey Ashby receives assistance with his spacesuit before boarding Space Shuttle Atlantis. Liftoff is schedued for 3:46 p.m. EDT. Along with a crew of six, Atlantis will carry the S1 Integrated Truss Structure and the Crew and Equipment Translation Aid (CETA) Cart A to the International Space Station (ISS). The CETA is the first of two human-powered carts that will ride along the ISS railway, providing mobile work platforms for future spacewalking astronauts. On the 11-day mission, three spacewalks are planned to attach the S1 truss. (Photo Release Date: 10/07/2002)
context_page_description: Jeffrey Shears Ashby is an American mechanical engineer, and former naval officer and aviator, test pilot and NASA astronaut, a veteran of three Space Shuttle missions. He is a retired Captain in the U.S. Navy. He currently works for Blue Origin as chief of mission assurance.
context_section_description: Ashby is a 1986 graduate of the Navy Fighter Weapons School, also known as "TOPGUN", and the U.S. Naval Test Pilot School. As a test pilot in the U.S. Navy, Ashby helped develop the F/A-18 aircraft and flew the aircraft in combat missions as part of Operation Desert Storm and Operation Southern Watch during and after the Gulf War and as part of Operation Continue Hope in Somalia. He was the Navy Attack Aviator of the Year in 1991. Ashby commanded a Fighter Squadron stationed aboard the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln; in 1994, his squadron was designated the top F/A-18 squadron in the Navy.
  Ashby accumulated over 7,000 flight hours and 1,000 carrier landings during six aircraft carrier deployments in his Navy career.
caption: Ashby preparing for launch of STS-112
exif: {}