Bryan Daniel O'Connor (born September 6, 1946) is a retired United States Marine Corps Colonel and former NASA astronaut.

[1] Graduated from Twentynine Palms High School in Twentynine Palms, California in 1964;[3] received a Bachelor of Science degree in engineering (minor in aeronautical engineering) from the United States Naval Academy in 1968, and a Master of Science degree in aeronautical systems from the University of West Florida in 1970.

He received his Naval Aviator wings in June 1970, and served as an attack pilot flying the A-4 Skyhawk and the AV-8A Harrier on land and sea assignments in the United States, Europe and the Western Pacific.

When the Challenger and its crew were lost in January 1986, O'Connor was given a number of safety and management assignments over the next three years as the Space Agency recovered from the disaster.

[5] O'Connor left NASA in August 1991 to become commanding officer of the Marine Aviation Detachment, Naval Air Test Center, Patuxent River.

O'Connor returned to NASA Headquarters in Washington, retiring from the Marine Corps to become the Deputy Associate Administrator for Space Flight.

He was immediately assigned the task of developing a comprehensive flight safety improvement plan for the Space Shuttle, working closely with Congress and the Administration for funding of the major upgrade program.

[7] Then in late summer 1992, he was assigned as leader of the negotiating team that traveled to Moscow to establish the framework for what subsequently became the ambitious and complex joint crewed space program known as Shuttle/MIR.

He planned and led an extensive program restructure designed to save the taxpayers approximately $1 billion over the five-year budget horizon.

Until 2002, when he rejoined NASA as Chief of Safety and Mission Assurance,[10] He served as Director of Engineering for Futron Corporation, a Bethesda, Maryland based company providing risk management and aerospace safety and dependability services to government and commercial organizations including the Federal Aviation Administration, Department of Defense, NASA, Department of Energy, Westinghouse, AlliedSignal and others.

After 145 orbits of the Earth traveling 3.29 million miles in 218 hours, O'Connor piloted Columbia to a landing at Edwards Air Force Base, California, his crew having safely and successfully completed over 100% of their mission objectives.