page_title: Frank L. Culbertson Jr.
section_title: Spaceflight experience
hierarchical_section_title: Frank L. Culbertson Jr. / NASA career / Spaceflight experience
caption_attribution_description: English: Astronaut Frank L. Culbertson, Expedition Three mission commander, and cosmonaut Vladimir N. Dezhurov (partially out of frame), flight engineer, wearing Russian Sokol suits, are seated in the Soyuz spacecraft that is docked to the International Space Station (ISS). This Soyuz return vehicle will be moved from the Earth-facing port of the Zarya module for the linkup to the new Pirs Docking Compartment. The move of the Soyuz will mark the first time the new Pirs, which arrived at the station September 17, 2001, will serve as a docking port. The Soyuz will be shifted to prepare for the arrival of a new Soyuz return craft, to be launched October 21, 2001 from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. The Soyuz can serve as a crew return vehicle at the station for a maximum of about six months. Dezhurov represents Rosaviakosmos. This image was taken with a digital still camera.
context_page_description: Frank Lee Culbertson Jr. is an American former naval officer and aviator, test pilot, aerospace engineer, NASA astronaut and graduate of the US Naval Academy. He served as the Commander of the International Space Station for almost four months in 2001 and was the only U.S. citizen not on Earth when the September 11 attacks occurred. Charles Burlingame, the captain of the plane which struck the Pentagon, was his classmate at Annapolis. He recently retired as President of the Space Systems Group at Northrop Grumman Innovation Systems. Mr. Culbertson was responsible for the execution, business development and financial performance of the company's human spaceflight, science, commercial communications, and national security satellite activities, as well as technical services to various government customers. These include some of Northrop Grumman's largest and most important programs such as NASA's Commercial Resupply Services initiatives to the International Space Station as well as various national security-related programs.
context_section_description: A veteran of three space flights, Culbertson has logged over 146 days in space .
  STS-38 Atlantis (November 15–20, 1990) was a five-day mission during which the crew conducted Department of Defense operations. The mission concluded after 80 orbits of the Earth in 117 hours, 54 minutes, 28 seconds, the first Shuttle to land in Florida since 1985.
  STS-51 Discovery (September 12–22, 1993) was a ten-day mission during which the crew deployed the U.S. Advanced Communications Technology Satellite (ACTS/TOS), and the Shuttle Pallet Satellite (ORFEUS/SPAS) carrying U.S. and German scientific experiments, including an ultraviolet spectrometer. A seven-hour EVA was also conducted to evaluate Hubble Space Telescope repair tools and methods. After the SPAS spacecraft had completed six days of free flight some 40 miles from Discovery, the crew completed a successful rendezvous and recovered the SPAS with the Shuttle's robot arm. The mission concluded with the first night landing of the Shuttle at the Kennedy Space Center. Mission duration was 158 Earth orbits in 236 hours and 11 minutes.
  The Expedition 3 crew launched on August 10, 2001 aboard STS-105 Discovery and docked with the International Space Station on August 12, 2001. Culbertson lived and worked aboard the station for a total of 129 days, and was in command of the station for 117 days. He was the only American not to be on Earth during the September 11 attacks. As the ISS passed over the New York City area after the attacks, Culbertson took photographs of the smoke emanating from Ground Zero in lower Manhattan. He later learned that the plane that struck the Pentagon had been piloted (at takeoff) by his Naval Academy classmate Charles Burlingame.  The two had been aeronautical engineering majors together, and had both gone on to become F-4 fighter pilots.  Culbertson had his trumpet onboard ISS, and with their Academy class having their 30th reunion, he played taps, which he felt was especially fitting in that the two had also played in the Academy's Drum & Bugle Corps together.  The Expedition 3 crew left the station on December 15 aboard STS-108 Endeavour, landing at Kennedy Space Center, Florida, on December 17, 2001.
caption: Culbertson inside Soyuz TM-32 during its moving to another docking port
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