Emsworth native Mike Fincke leaves NASA after 30-year career

NASA astronaut and Emsworth native Mike Fincke is departing the space agency after 30 years of service.

Throughout his career, Fincke flew four spaceflights, spent 549 days in orbit and completed nine spacewalks.

NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman recognized Fincke’s service across multiple eras of human spaceflight.

“Few people have had the opportunity to shape as many chapters of NASA’s history as Mike Fincke,” Isaacman said. “Over a remarkable career, Mike served our nation as a pilot, engineer, astronaut, and mentor. From long-duration missions aboard the International Space Station to helping prepare the Artemis generation, his contributions have helped position NASA for what comes next.”

Although departing from NASA, Fincke says he’s still committed to the work of exploration.

“NASA gave me the extraordinary privilege of serving alongside remarkable people, flying and helping develop spacecraft, and contributing to the International Space Station from its earliest days through command in orbit,” he said. “I am profoundly grateful to my crewmates, the teams on the ground, our international partners, and the families who make this work possible.”

The agency says Fincke ranks fourth among NASA astronauts in accumulated time in space, with his spacewalks totaling 48 hours and 37 minutes. He most recently piloted NASA’s SpaceX Crew-11 mission, which launched in August 2025 and returned in January, serving as flight engineer for International Space Station Expedition 73 and commander of Expedition 74.

That crew returned to Earth early after Fincke suffered a medical issue while on the International Space Station.

Fincke joined NASA’s 16th astronaut class in 1996 and made his first flight to orbit in 2004 aboard Soyuz TMA-4 as a science officer and flight engineer for Expedition 9. During that mission, he performed four spacewalks and helped maintain space station systems. He returned to space in 2008 aboard Soyuz TMA-13 as commander of Expedition 18, completing two more spacewalks and preparing the station for its transition to six-person crews.

In 2011, Fincke flew as a mission specialist and robotic arm operator on STS-134, the final flight of space shuttle Endeavour. He completed three spacewalks during the mission to help deliver and install the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer.

Fincke later served as chief of the Astronaut Office’s Commercial Crew Branch, working to inform the development of commercial crewed spacecraft. He also spent five years supporting Boeing’s Crew Flight Test program as a crew member and backup pilot, contributing to flight software, systems integration, testing and spacecraft interfaces.

Across his career, Fincke flew on three distinct human spacecraft: Soyuz, the space shuttle and the SpaceX Dragon. His ground roles included serving as a crew test support team member in Russia, a capsule communicator and crew procedures team lead.

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