After leaving the Regular Navy and transferring to the Naval Reserve in 1982, Phillips enrolled as a graduate student at UCLA.

Upon completing his doctorate in 1987, he was awarded a J. Robert Oppenheimer Postdoctoral Fellowship at Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico.

From 1993 through 1996 he was Principal Investigator for the Solar Wind Plasma Experiment aboard the Ulysses Spacecraft as it executed a unique trajectory over the poles of the sun.

He has authored 156 scientific papers dealing with the plasma environments of the sun, earth, other planets, comets and spacecraft.

They also delivered experiments and supplies aboard the Multi-Purpose Logistics Module Raffaello on its maiden flight.

On April 15, 2005, Phillips, along with his fellow crew-members Sergei Krikalev, and Roberto Vittori launched to the ISS aboard Soyuz TMA-6.

He gave testimony to the United States House of Representatives Science Space Subcommittee via a live video feed.

On August 18, 2005, Phillips and Krikalev completed a five-hour spacewalk to retrieve several experiments and install a video camera for the new docking procedure.

Phillips and Krikalev, along with Space Flight Participant Gregory Olsen, returned to Earth aboard Soyuz TMA-6 on October 11, 2005.

This article incorporates public domain material from websites or documents of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.