20 Facts About Timothy Kopra

Timothy Lennart "Tim" Kopra was born on April 9,1963 and is an American engineer, a Colonel in the United States Army, and a retired NASA astronaut.

Timothy Kopra 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.

Timothy Kopra returned to the ISS for the second time in December 2015, as part of Expedition 46 and as the commander of 47.

Timothy Kopra is of Finnish descent on his father's side.

Timothy Kopra's grandfather, Antti Kopra, born in Laavola, Valkjarvi, Karelia, and his grandmother, Ester Elisabet Saksinen, born in Helsinki, left Finland in 1914, immigrating to the United States.

Timothy Kopra's father spoke Finnish, but Tim does not speak the language.

In 1981, Timothy Kopra was photographed singing on stage and playing trombone for Austin, Texas punk funk band Big Boys.

Timothy Kopra received his commission as a second lieutenant from the US Military Academy in May 1985 and was designated as an Army aviator in August 1986.

Timothy Kopra 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.

Timothy Kopra completed his tour in Germany as an attack helicopter company commander and an operations officer.

Timothy Kopra was assigned to NASA at the Johnson Space Center in September 1998 as a vehicle integration test engineer.

Timothy Kopra was actively involved in the contractor tests of the Extravehicular Activity interfaces for each of the space station truss segments.

Timothy Kopra then completed the initial two years of intensive Space Shuttle and ISS training, scientific and technical briefings, and T-38 flight training.

Timothy Kopra was 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, Timothy Kopra served as an aquanaut during the NEEMO 11 mission aboard the Aquarius underwater laboratory, living and working underwater for seven days.

Timothy 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.

Timothy Kopra participated in the first spacewalk of the STS-127 mission.

Timothy Kopra was assigned to fly on STS-133, the final flight of the Discovery.

Timothy Kopra lost that assignment when he was injured in a bicycle accident, possibly breaking his hip.

Timothy Kopra returned to Earth on Soyuz TMA-19M, and landed 18 June 2016 09:15 UTC, after spending 186 days in space.