Charles Bolden

Charles Bolden is a retired US Marine Corps major general, a former astronaut and a former NASA Administrator. He flew four Space Shuttle missions: as pilot of STS-61-C in January 1986 and STS-31 in April 1990, the flight that deployed the Hubble Space Telescope, then as commander of STS-45 in 1992 and STS-60 in 1994. STS-61-C was the last shuttle mission before the Challenger STS-51-L disaster. He led NASA from 2009 to 2017, the first African American to hold the post.

Born: 19 August 1946
Country: United States
Flights: 4: STS-61-C (1986), STS-31 (1990), STS-45 (1992), STS-60 (1994)
Time in space: 28 days 8 hours

Data as of 2 November 2026. Source: Wikidata (CC0). All people who have flown in space.

Events

28 January 1986

Challenger STS-51-L
- Space Shuttle
- Dick Scobee, Michael J. Smith, Ellison Onizuka, Judith Resnik, Ronald McNair, Gregory Jarvis, Christa McAuliffe
Christa McAuliffe was to be the first teacher in space, and the flight drew an audience in classrooms across the United States.
21 videos
- The New York Times
- Mr. Beat
- M M
Hubble Space Telescope
- Hubble Space Telescope, Space Shuttle
Hubble is a 2.4-metre telescope in low Earth orbit, built so that astronauts could service it. NASA and ESA built it to see the universe without the blur of the atmosphere, and to settle how fast the universe was expanding.
3 videos
- DCODE by Discovery
- NASA Goddard
- Primal Space