Astronaut Rick Mastracchio was selected as an astronaut in 1996, and flew as a Mission Specialist on three NASA Space Shuttle missions?STS-106, STS-118, and STS-131?before serving as a Flight Engineer on the Soyuz TMA-11M (Expedition 38/Expedition 39) long duration mission aboard the International Space Station. He has performed nine spacewalks for a combined duration of over 53 hours, and logged a cumulative total of more than 227 days in space.