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Andrew "Andy" Sydney Withiel Thomas
NASA Astronaut
Nationality	American
Status	Active
Born	December 18, 1951 Adelaide, South Australia
Other occupation	Currently married to long life partner Renae Charalambous
Space time	177d 9h 14m
Selection	1992 NASA Group
Missions	STS-77, STS-89, Mir, STS-91, STS-102, STS-114
Mission insignia

Andrew "Andy" Sydney Withiel Thomas (born December 18, 1951 in Adelaide, South Australia) is an Australian-born U.S. aerospace engineer and a NASA astronaut. He became a U.S. citizen in December 1986. [1] He is married to NASA astronaut Shannon Walker.

Educated at St Peter's College, Adelaide before receiving a bachelor of engineering degree in mechanical engineering (with First Class honours) from the University of Adelaide in 1973. He completed a doctorate in the same subject at the University of Adelaide in 1978.

He appears in the 1972 edition of the Adelaide University Engineering Society's annual publication, Hysteresis. The caption below a photograph of the young Thomas reads:

"A.S.W. (Syd) Thomas: Hides his massive intellect behind a screen of silence and hair. His abilities are varied and include designing wine labels for the A.U.E.S."

– Hysteresis 1972, pg 27 [2]

In August 1993, following one year of training, Thomas was appointed a member of the NASA astronaut corps and was qualified for assignment as a Mission Specialist on Space Shuttle flight crews.

In June 1995, Thomas was named Payload Commander for STS-77, subsequently making his first space flight on board the Space Shuttle Endeavour in May 1996. He then undertook long-duration flight training at the Yuri Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center in Star City, Russia before serving 130 days as Board Engineer 2 onboard the Russian space station Mir in 1998, launching on STS-89 and returning on STS-91. His third space flight, STS-102, increased his time spent in space to more than 177 days. For his fourth flight, he was a Mission Specialist on the Discovery "return to flight" mission (STS-114) that launched at 14:39 UTC, 26 July 2005.

He has served as Deputy Chief of NASA's Astronaut Office.

• Philip K. Chapman
• Paul D. Scully-Power
• Andy Thomas

• NASA Bio
• Astronaut blasts lack of research into space (The Sun-Herald, May 20, 2004): Comments from Thomas about state of Australian space science

v • d • e  Shuttle-Mir Program Main articles: Shuttle-Mir Program, Mir, Space Shuttle Missions: STS-60, STS-63, Soyuz TM-21, STS-71, STS-74, STS-76, STS-79, STS-81, STS-84, STS-86, STS-89, STS-91 Increments: Thagard, Lucid, Blaha, Linenger, Foale, Wolf, Thomas

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