Miguel López Alegría
NASA Astronaut

MMiguel ("Michael") López Alegría was born in Madrid on May 30, 1958, but was brought up in the United States, where his father, an aerospace engineer, worked for McDonell Douglas for 20 years. Lopez Alegría is now an American citizen, lives in Mission Viejo (California) and works for the American space agency, NASA.

After graduating from Mission Viejo high school, he studied systems engineering at the US Naval Academy and obtained a master of science degree in aeronautical engineering from the US Naval Postgraduate School in 1988. As a US Navy aviator, López Alegría served as a flight instructor in Pensacola, Florida, and later as a pilot and mission commander for an electronic reconnaissance squadron in Rota, Spain, flying missions in the Mediterranean Sea, North Atlantic, Baltic Sea and Central America.

López-Alegría received the call from NASA in March 1992, and after one year of training and designation as an astronaut, he carried out various assignments at the Kennedy Space Center. On his first mission in space, from October 20 to November 5, 1995, Lopez-Alegria served as a mission specialist and flight engineer aboard the space shuttle Columbia, orbiting Earth 256 times, travelling over 6 million miles, and clocking up a total of 15 days, 21 hours, 52 minutes and 21 seconds in space.

In October 2000, López was scheduled to take part in his second shuttle mission, and this time was due to take his first space walk, installing a docking node on the International Space Station.