Timothy Kopra Timothy Lennart Kopra ( born April 9 , 1963 ) is a Colonel in the United States Army and a NASA astronaut . He served aboard the International Space Station as a flight engineer for Expedition 20 , returning to Earth aboard Space Shuttle " Discovery " on the STS - 128 mission on September 11 , 2009 . Personal . Kopra was born in Austin , Texas . Kopra is married to Dawn Kaye Lehman of Lewisburg , Kentucky , and they have two children , Matthew and Jacqueline . His mother , Martha A . Kopra , resides in Austin , Texas . His father , Dr . Lennart L . Kopra , died December 8 , 1998 . He is of Finnish descent on his father ' s side . His grandfather , Antti Kopra , born in Laavola , Valkjärvi , Karelia , and his grandmother , Ester Elisabet Saksinen , born in Helsinki , left Finland in 1914 , immigrating to the United States . Kopra ' s father spoke Finnish , but Tim does not speak the language . Military career . Kopra received his commission as a Second Lieutenant from the U . S . Military Academy in May 1985 and was designated as an Army Aviator in August 1986 . He then completed a three - year assignment at Fort Campbell , Kentucky , where he served as an aeroscout platoon leader , troop executive officer , and squadron adjutant in the 101st Airborne Division ’ s air cavalry squadron . In 1990 , he was assigned to the 3rd Armored Division in Hanau , Germany , and was deployed to the Middle East in support of Operations Desert Shield and Desert Storm . He completed his tour in Germany as an attack helicopter company commander and an operations officer . Kopra retired from the U . S . Army in November 2010 . NASA career . Kopra was assigned to NASA at the Johnson Space Center in September 1998 as a vehicle integration test engineer . In this position , he primarily served as an engineering liaison for Space Shuttle launch operations and International Space Station hardware testing . He was actively involved in the contractor tests of the Extravehicular Activity ( EVA ) interfaces for each of the space station truss segments . Selected as a mission specialist by NASA in July 2000 , Kopra reported for Astronaut Candidate Training the following month . He then completed the initial two years of intensive Space Shuttle and ISS training , scientific and technical briefings , and T - 38 flight training . Kopra was also assigned technical duties in the Space Station Branch of the Astronaut Office , where his primary focus was the testing of crew interfaces for two future ISS modules as well as the implementation of support computers and operational Local Area Network on International Space Station . In September 2006 , Kopra served as an aquanaut during the mission aboard the Aquarius underwater laboratory , living and working underwater for seven days . Kopra spent a little less than 60 days as a Flight Engineer of Expedition 20 on the ISS , arriving aboard the station aboard space shuttle " Endeavour " on the STS - 127 mission and returning to Earth aboard space shuttle " Discovery " on the STS - 128 mission . He participated in the first spacewalk of the STS - 127 mission . Kopra was assigned to fly on STS - 133 , the final flight of the " Discovery " . He lost that assignment when he was injured in a bicycle accident , possibly breaking his hip . He was replaced by Stephen G . Bowen .