He is known for having performed ten spacewalks so far in his career, presently holding the second longest all-time EVA duration record (first among NASA astronauts) and having the fifth-longest spaceflight of any American at the length of 215 days; this time was spent on board the ISS from September 18, 2006, to April 21, 2007.

López-Alegría commanded Axiom-1, the first ever all-private team of commercial astronaut mission to the International Space Station, which launched on April 8, 2022, and spent just over 17 days in Earth's orbit.

[3] Son of a Spanish father and an American mother, López-Alegría was born in Madrid, Spain and raised in Mission Viejo, California.

A second documentary, directed by Manuel Huerga, Son And Moon, was released in Spanish theaters in 2009 featuring astronauts Mikhail Tyurin, Sunita Williams, and him.

During flight STS-92, he tested the SAFER jet backpack with fellow astronaut Jeff Wisoff, flying up to 50 feet from the spacecraft.

[5] López-Alegría served as an aquanaut on the first NEEMO (NASA Extreme Environment Mission Operations) crew aboard the Aquarius underwater laboratory in October 2001.