Mission Specialist

A Mission Specialist (MS) is a position held by certain NASA astronauts during Space Shuttle missions. A Mission Specialist is assigned to a limited field of the mission, such as for medical experiments or technical quests.

Other functions on board are Pilot, Flight Engineer and Mission Commander. Some Space Shuttle missions included Payload Specialists in addition to Mission Specialists. While a Payload Specialist was selected for a single specific mission, a Mission Specialist was selected as an astronaut first, and then assigned to a mission.

Mission Specialist is abbreviated by NASA as MS.


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Famous quotes containing the words mission and/or specialist:

    “We never can tell how our lives may work to the account of the general good, and we are not wise enough to know if we have fulfilled our mission or not.”
    —Ellen Henrietta Swallow Richards (1842–1911)

    “A specialist is someone who does everything else worse.”
    —Ruggiero Ricci (b. 1918)