Mark Brown
BS aeronautical and astronautical engineering ’73
Born: 1951
Missions: STS-28, 48
Mark Brown logged more than 10 days in space across two space shuttle missions.
Mark N. Brown NASA Bio
Learn More
In 1989, Brown served as a mission specialist aboard space shuttle Columbia on STS-28, which carried Department of Defense payloads and a number of secondary payloads. And in 1991, he served as a crew member aboard space shuttle Discovery on STS-48, helping to deploy the upper atmosphere research satellite, a 14,500-pound observatory for studying the atmospheric layer 7 to 10 miles from Earth’s surface.
Brown was commissioned as a pilot in the United States Air Force following his graduation from Purdue and was assigned to the 87th Fighter Interceptor Squadron at K.I. Sawyer Air Force Base, where he flew T-33 and F-106 aircraft. He earned a master’s degree in astronautical engineering in 1980 while at the U.S. Air Force Institute of Technology at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base and graduated from the Air Command and Staff College at Maxwell Air Force Base two years later.
He later worked at NASA as an engineer in the Flight Activities Section at Johnson Space Center, supporting multiple space shuttle flights in the Mission Control Center. NASA selected him to become an astronaut in 1984.
Brown left NASA and retired from the Air Force with the rank of colonel in 1993.
