Kathryn C. Thornton

Kathryn Thornton is an American physicist and former NASA astronaut who flew four Space Shuttle missions: STS-33 (1989), STS-49 (1992), STS-61 (1993) and STS-73 (1995). On STS-49 she took part in a spacewalk to retrieve and repair a communications satellite. STS-61 was Hubble Servicing Mission 1, in which she was one of four astronauts who repaired the Hubble Space Telescope. She logged more than 21 hours of spacewalks and later became a professor at the University of Virginia.

Born: 17 August 1952
Country: United States
Flights: 4: STS-33 (1989), STS-49 (1992), STS-61 (1993), STS-73 (1995)
Time in space: 40 days 15 hours

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

Events

2 December 1993

Hubble Servicing Mission 1
- Space Shuttle
- Richard O. Covey, Ken Bowersox, Story Musgrave, Jeffrey A. Hoffman, Kathryn C. Thornton, Claude Nicollier, Thomas Akers
Hubble was built to be serviced by astronauts, with handrails and instruments designed to be removed and replaced.
2 videos
- NASA Goddard
- Aviation & Space
Hubble Space Telescope servicing missions
- Hubble Space Telescope, Space Shuttle
1 video
- Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum
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