James Donald Halsell Jr. (born September 29, 1956) is a retired United States Air Force officer, a former NASA astronaut.

From February to August 1998, he served as NASA Director of Operations at the Yuri Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center, Star City, Russia.

Halsell also served as manager of Shuttle Launch Integration at Kennedy Space Center, Florida, from July 2000 to January 2003.

Halsell retired from NASA in November 2006 to accept a position with ATK Launch Systems, where he served as Vice President of Space Exploration Systems, and was the ATK site manager at Marshall Space Flight Center, Huntsville, Alabama.

During the 8-day flight, the Atlantis crew successfully attached a permanent docking module to Mir and transferred over 2,000 pounds of food, water and scientific supplies for use by the cosmonauts.

STS-83, the Microgravity Science Laboratory (MSL-1) Spacelab mission, was cut short because of problems with one of the Shuttle's three fuel cell power generation units.

[1] In 2014, Halsell had a blood alcohol level of 0.12 after causing a crash in Palmdale, California, north of Los Angeles, and pleaded no contest to a charge of drunken driving.

[3] On June 6, 2016, while on his probation, Halsell was involved in an alleged driving under the influence crash in Tuscaloosa, Alabama.

[3] He was allegedly intoxicated, and investigators found an empty wine bottle and a packet of sleeping pills in a motel room where he was staying.

[4][5] An initial hearing scheduled in June 2017 was delayed when Halsell's lawyers and those from the state were working toward a settlement.

[3] Several years later, the trial was set for March 9, 2020,[6] and in January 2020, a judge ruled that prosecutors would not be permitted to tell the jury about Halsell's prior DUI conviction.