NASA astronaut has AFRL Kirtland connection

  • Published
  • By Jeanne Dailey
  • Air Force Research Laboratory
KIRTLAND AIR FORCE BASE, N.M. --  Col. Michael Hopkins recently skyrocketed into fame when he performed a series of spacewalks as a crew member on the International Space Station.

In 1993, Hopkins was a second lieutenant reporting to his first duty station at the Phillips Laboratory, a predecessor to today's Air Force Research Laboratory at Kirtland Air Force Base.

While at the lab, Hopkins worked on advanced space system technologies, a perfect fit for his master's degree in aerospace engineering from Stanford University. He arrived here as a distinguished graduate from the University of Illinois Reserve Officer Training Corps, and as the 1991 team captain of the University of Illinois football team.

Hopkins had aspired to be an astronaut since he was in high school. In a NASA interview, Hopkins said his father was an aviator in the Marines and his uncle was a pilot in the Air Force, piquing his interest in space.

In 1996, Hopkins attended the flight test engineering course at the Air Force Test Pilot School at Edwards AFB, Calif., where he was a distinguished graduate and top flight engineer. With this monumental achievement, Hopkins was on the road to an exceptional Air Force career that included his dream of becoming an astronaut.

Hopkins said he applied multiple times to be an astronaut and was selected on his fourth application. He was among 14 members of the 20th NASA astronaut class and graduated from Astronaut Candidate Training in 2011. On Sept. 23, 2013, he launched on ISS Expedition 38 from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan along with two Russian cosmonauts.

Col. Scott Maethner, the AFRL Directed Energy Directorate deputy director, was a lieutenant at Kirtland along with Hopkins.

"Mike and I worked in different parts of the lab, but were on the same intramural sports teams," Maethner said. "He was always three steps ahead of everyone else on the football field and basketball court and had a motor that wouldn't quit. The Phillips Lab benefitted from his talents and did very well in base tournaments, winning the base flag football championship and achieving base runner up in basketball in 1994. With all of his energy and motivation, I'm not surprised Mike ended up as a NASA astronaut."

As one of a little more than 200 astronauts to have been on the ISS, Hopkins is one of a lesser number who have actually walked in space. He and fellow NASA astronaut Rick Mastracchio performed two spacewalks in December 2013 with a rare spacewalk on Christmas Eve. They spent nearly 13 hours in space successfully fixing the station's cooling system.

Hopkins will return in March after circling Earth every 90 minutes since his arrival at the ISS in September.