James Shelton Voss (born March 3, 1949) is a retired United States Army colonel and NASA astronaut.

Under the Army Graduate Fellowship Program, Voss was allowed to defer his entry into active duty in order to attend the University of Colorado.

Voss was then stationed with the 2nd Battalion, 48th Infantry Regiment in West Germany serving as a platoon leader, intelligence staff officer, and C company commander.

While at West Point, Voss participated in a NASA Summer Faculty Research Fellowship and received the William P. Clements Jr. Award for Excellence in Education as the outstanding professor at the Academy.

[2] Selected as an astronaut candidate by NASA in June 1987, Voss completed a one-year training and evaluation program in August 1988, which qualified him for assignment as a mission specialist on Space Shuttle flights.

The mission's primary objective was the deployment of a Defense Support Program satellite with an Inertial Upper Stage booster rocket.

The flight, which orbited the Earth 171 times from September 7–18, 1995, successfully deployed a SPARTAN satellite and the Wake Shield Facility.

His crewmates Yuri Usachev and Susan Helms flew with him on Atlantis in order to gain experience for their future long-duration stay.

The primary objectives of the flight were to rotate crew members and to resupply the station using the Multi-Purpose Logistics Module.

Voss participated in one of the missions two spacewalks, along with Susan Helms, to prepare a Pressurized Mating Adapter for relocation.

The spacewalk set a record of 8 hours 56 minutes duration, that withstood until, it was broken by two Chinese astronauts on 17 December 2024.

[8] Voss, Susan Helms, and Yuri Usachev spent 163 days aboard the International Space Station conducting 18 scientific experiments, maintenance, and outfitting.

Voss is a member of the NASA Advisory Council and on the Board of Directors of the National Space Biomedical Research Institute.

Voss has also been awarded: This article incorporates public domain material from websites or documents of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.