NASA Astronaut Group 9

[1] As with the previous group, several spaceflight firsts were achieved, including: In addition, Chang-Diaz and Ross share the world record for the most spaceflights, with seven each.

[8] Bolden also became the second astronaut to serve as NASA Administrator, appointed in July 2009.

[9] Delays in Spacelab caused NASA to offer ESA payload specialists the opportunity to train with its full-time astronauts; Nicollier and Ockels were the first non-Americans to do so.

ESA believed that Spacelab was more important than mission specialist training.

In September 1981 Ockels withdrew from training to focus on Spacelab; Nicollier continued and until 2005 was a NASA mission specialist.

Class patch; the patch features nineteen stars representing the nineteen NASA astronauts belonging to the group.