Michael S. Hopkins

Michael Scott Hopkins was born on December 28, 1968 in Lebanon, Missouri but grew up on a farm in Richland, Missouri in a United Methodist family.[5] After graduating from the School of the Osage High School in Lake of the Ozarks, Missouri, in 1987, he entered the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. While there, he played defensive back for the Illinois Fighting Illini football team and was awarded the Big Ten Medal of Honor, which recognizes one male and one female student from the graduating class of each Big Ten member school, for demonstrating joint athletic and academic excellence throughout their college career.[6][7] He graduated in 1991 with a Bachelor of Science degree in aerospace engineering. He followed his undergraduate studies with a Master of Science degree in aerospace engineering from Stanford University, which he earned in 1992.

Mike Hopkins in flight suit while serving as special assistant to the Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

Hopkins received his commission in the Air Force via the Air Force ROTC from the University of Illinois, where he was a distinguished graduate. After graduating with his bachelor's degree he was commissioned a second lieutenant in January 1992. Early in his Air Force career, he was stationed at Kirtland Air Force Base in Albuquerque, New Mexico working on advanced space system technologies. In 1996, he attended the U.S. Air Force Test Pilot School as a flight test engineer. He graduated in class 96B as a Distinguished graduate and top flight test engineer. Following Test Pilot School he was assigned to the 418th Flight Test Squadron testing the C-17 and C-130 aircraft. In 1999, he was sent to Canada on an exchange program. While there he lived in Cold Lake, Alberta working with the Canadian Flight Test Center. In 2002, he was selected as an Olmsted Scholar by the George and Carol Olmsted Foundation and was sent to the Defense Language Institute in Monterey, California studying foreign language. After six months of language training, he was sent to Parma, Italy studying political science at the Università degli Studi di Parma. In 2005, Hopkins was assigned to the U.S. Air Force Rapid Capabilities Project Office at the Pentagon where he was a project engineer and program manager. Following this assignment, in 2008 he was assigned as a Special Assistant to the Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General James Cartwright. He was working with the Joint Chiefs when he was assigned to be an astronaut candidate.[8]

In February 2011 Hopkins was assigned to the crew of ISS Expedition 37/38, becoming the first member of his astronaut class to be given a flight assignment. He began training alongside Russian cosmonauts Oleg Kotov and Sergey Ryazansky for a long-duration flight to the Space Station.[10]

Hopkins, joined by Kotov and Ryazansky, launched on board the Soyuz TMA-10M spacecraft on September 25, 2013, the trio docked with the International Space Station several hours later, where they all joined the Expedition 37 crew alongside Roscosmos cosmonaut Fyodor Yurchikhin, NASA astronaut Karen Nyberg and ESA astronaut Luca Parmitano.[11] Shortly before his arrival aboard the station, the crew had welcomed the Orbital Sciences Corporation Orb-D1 mission, the first demonstration flight of Orbital's Cygnus unmanned resupply spacecraft, flying under the Commercial Resupply Services contract.[12]

Hopkins during an EVA with Rick Mastracchio

Following the departure of Soyuz TMA-09M, carrying Yurchikin, Nyberg and Parmitano, Hopkins and his two crewmates joined the Expedition 38 crew, with Kotov taking over as Station commander. Prior to the departure of Soyuz TMA-09M they were shortly joined with the remaining three Expedition 38 crew members: Roscosmos cosmonaut Mikhail Tyurin, NASA astronaut Rick Mastracchio and JAXA astronaut Koichi Wakata aboard Soyuz TMA-11M. This unusual "direct handover" was in order to allow the crew of Soyuz TMA-11M to bring up an Olympic torch, to be returned by the crew of Soyuz TMA-09M days later as part of the Olympic Torch Relay for the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia.[13] During Expedition 38 Hopkins participated in two spacewalks alongside Mastracchio lasting five hours and 28 minutes and 7 hours and 30 minutes respectively. During the spacewalks, Mastracchio and Hopkins performed maintenance and upgrades on the exterior of the station. Also during ISS-38 Hopkins was aboard the station for the berthing and release of Cygnus CRS Orb-1, the first operational flight of the Cygnus spacecraft.[14]

Hopkins (left) with Rick Mastracchio during a Thanksgiving meal on the ISS

Hopkins and his two crew mates departed the station aboard Soyuz TMA-10M on March 10, 2014, leaving Tyrin, Masstrachio and Wakata aboard the station as the initial crew of Expedition 39. The trio landed in Kazakhstan less than five hours later, ending a 166-day spaceflight.[15]

In August 2018, Hopkins and Victor Glover were assigned to fly on SpaceX Crew-1, the first operational mission to the International Space Station of the SpaceX Crew Dragon as part of NASA's Commercial Crew Program.[16] The two were later joined by NASA astronaut Shannon Walker and JAXA astronaut Soichi Noguchi in March 2020.[17] The crew launched on Crew Dragon Resilience on November 15, 2020 and arrived at the Station on November 17. On December 18, Hopkins became the first astronaut to transfer from the Air Force to the Space Force in a ceremony on the International Space Station.[18][19]