Robert L. Satcher, MD, Ph.D.
September 22, 1965.
Physician
NASA Astronaut
Dr. Satcher graduated from Denmark-Olar High School, Denmark, South Carolina, in 1982. He received a bachelor of science
degree in chemical engineering from Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1986; a doctor of philosophy in
chemical engineering from MIT in 1993 and a doctor of medicine degree from Harvard Medical School in 1994. Dr.
Satcher completed his internship and residency in orthopedic surgery at the University of California, San
Francisco, in 2000; postdoctoral research fellowships at MIT in 1994 and University of California, Berkeley in 1998;
and a fellowship in musculoskeletal oncology at the University of Florida in 2001.
He participated in 2 spacewalks during STS-129, accumulating 12hrs 19min of EVA time. Satcher holds two doctorates (Ph.D., M.D.) and has received numerous awards and honors as a surgeon and engineer.
Mission Served on
STS-129 ( November 16, 2009)
Biography
Born in Hampton, Robert Lee Satcher Jr. earned a Ph.D. in chemical engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1993 and an M.D. from Harvard Medical School in 1994. His medical specialties are orthopedics and oncology, and he has done much work in treating adult and child bone cancer. With extensive experience researching, teaching, and practicing throughout the United States, he has embarked on mission trips to many foreign countries, including Gabon, Nicaragua, Nigeria, and Venezuela.
Selected as an astronaut candidate by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration in 2004, he completed his training two years later. Aboard the space shuttle Atlantis journeyed to the International Space Station for almost eleven days in November 2009, Satcher became the first orthopedic surgeon to fly into space. Classified as a mission specialist, he studied the influence of zero gravity on muscles and bone density, as well as the effects of space on the immune system. He also used his surgical training to install an antenna and help repair two robotic arms on the space station. Satcher spent more than 259 hours in space, trekked 4.5 million miles in 171 orbits above the Earth, and took two separate spacewalks outside the shuttlecraft. He left NASA in 2011 and is a surgical oncologist at the MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, Texas.
2013 Strong Men & Women in Virginia History honoree, Library of Virginia and Dominion.
Selected by NASA in May 2004, Satcher completed Astronaut Candidate Training in February 2006. Satcher later worked on the STS-129 mission as a mission specialist.[4] Satcher spent over 259 hours in space and participated in two of the three spacewalks, totaling 12hr 19min.
Satcher joined The University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in 2011, in the Department of Orthopaedic Oncology.
Satcher is married and has two children. He enjoys running, scuba diving, and reading.
Satcher was a National Merit Scholar, and received the Monsanto Award and the Albert G. Hill Award from MIT, fellowships from both the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and UNCF/Merck Research department, and is a member of the Tau Beta Pi Engineering Honor Society.