Karol Joseph "Bo" Bobko (December 23, 1937 – August 17, 2023) was an American aerospace engineer, U.S. Air Force officer, test pilot, and a USAF and NASA astronaut.

[2][3][4] He graduated from Brooklyn Technical High School in 1955 before receiving a Bachelor of Science degree from the United States Air Force Academy in 1959.

He attended the Aerospace Research Pilot School at Edwards Air Force Base, California, and was assigned as an astronaut to the USAF Manned Orbiting Laboratory (MOL) program in 1966.

Subsequently, he was a member of the support crew for the Space Shuttle Approach and Landing Tests conducted at Edwards Air Force Base.

[2] In preparation for the first flight of Columbia (STS-1) Bobko served as the lead astronaut in the test and checkout group at Kennedy Space Center.

After 120 hours of orbital operations, Challenger landed on the concrete runway at Edwards Air Force Base in California, on April 9, 1983.

His areas of emphasis were: high performance training simulation, hardware and software systems engineering, spacecraft checkout and testing, space station development and program integration.

[2] In 2005, Bobko joined Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC) as Program Manager for the NASA Ames Research Center Simulation Laboratories (SimLabs) contract.

[12] Bobko died of complications of an unspecified degenerative disease of the nervous system in Half Moon Bay on August 17, 2023, at age 85.