Jack D. Fischer

U.S. Air Force service

Fischer is a Colonel in the U.S. Air Force. He attended Specialized Undergraduate Pilot Training at Laughlin Air Force Base, Texas, in 1998, followed by F-15E Strike Eagle training at Seymour-Johnson Air Force Base, North Carolina. He then served as an operational pilot in the 391st Fighter Squadron Bold Tigers. Following the September 11, 2001 attacks, Fischer completed two combat tours in Southwest Asia as part of Operation Enduring Freedom and Operation Southern Watch over Afghanistan and Iraq.

He graduated from the U.S. Air Force Test Pilot School at Edwards Air Force Base, California, in 2004, receiving the Onizuka Prop Wash Award. In 2006, he returned to Edwards to test the F-22 Raptor with the F-22 Combined Test Force and 411th Flight Test Squadron. In 2008, Fischer became a Strategic Policy Intern in Washington, D.C., serving in the Chairman's Action Group for the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and in the Space and Intelligence Capabilities Office. He is an Air Force Command Pilot with 3,000 flight hours in more than 45 types of aircraft.

NASA career

Jack D. Fischer became a NASA astronaut candidate in June 2009 as part of Astronaut Group 20 and earned his astronaut qualification in 2011. His roles within the Astronaut Office included the Capsule Communicator (CAPCOM) for Soyuz, International Space Station Operations, International Space Station Integration, and the Exploration branch. In 2013, he joined the European Space Agency's CAVES training in Sardinia as a cavenaut, alongside Jeremy Hansen, Michael Barratt, Satoshi Furukawa, Aleksei Ovchinin, and Paolo Nespoli.

Initially slated for Expedition 52/53, Fischer was moved to the Soyuz MS-04 mission, launching on April 20, 2017, as a flight engineer for Expeditions 51 and 52. The crew docked with the station about six hours after launch, making them the first Soyuz-MS crew to use the quicker six-hour rendezvous instead of the usual two-day approach. On May 13, 2017, Fischer conducted his first spacewalk with Peggy Whitson. The EVA was cut short to four hours and thirteen minutes because a leak in Fischer's EMU umbilical forced the pair to share a Service Cooling Unit line, limiting battery life.

They replaced an ExPRESS Logistics Carrier avionics box on the starboard truss, and the spacewalk marked the 200th EVA on the ISS. On May 23, 2017, he performed a second EVA with Whitson, lasting two hours and forty-six minutes, to swap out a failed backup multiplexer-demultiplexer unit. Fischer returned to Earth on September 3, 2017, aboard Soyuz MS-04 with Peggy Whitson and Fyodor Yurchikhin, after spending 135 days, 18 hours, and 8 minutes in space. He announced his early departure from NASA on May 24, 2018, to resume service with the U.S. Air Force.