NASA astronaut Andrew Morgan retires after record-setting space mission
Morgan, who spent 272 days aboard the International Space Station, set the U.S. single-flight spacewalk record before concluding his 12-year tenure with the agency.
U.S. Army Brigadier General Andrew Morgan has retired from NASA after a 12-year career, returning to active military service as the commanding general of the White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico. The announcement was issued by the agency on 28 May 2026, marking the end of a tenure that saw Morgan serve as a flight engineer, mission support branch chief, and crew operations officer.
Selected for NASA’s 21st astronaut class in August 2013, Morgan launched aboard the Soyuz MS-13 spacecraft on 20 July 2019, coinciding with the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 Moon landing. He spent 272 days aboard the International Space Station during Expeditions 60, 61, and 62, travelling over 115 million miles and completing more than 4,300 Earth orbits.
During his nine-month mission, Morgan conducted seven spacewalks totalling 45 hours and 48 minutes, setting a record for the longest cumulative spacewalk time during a single spaceflight by a U.S. astronaut. Four of these extravehicular activities were dedicated to repairing the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer, a particle physics detector designed to search for evidence of antimatter and dark matter.
Morgan’s duties also included supporting hundreds of scientific experiments and technology demonstrations. Beyond his time in orbit, he served as the Astronaut Office’s mission support branch chief, crew operations officer, and astronaut mission control team liaison for Expeditions 67 and 68. In his final two years at NASA, he held rotational assignments as commander of the U.S. Army Garrison Kwajalein Atoll and senior military advisor for the U.S. Ambassador to the Republic of the Marshall Islands.
Vanessa Wyche, director of NASA’s Johnson Space Center, and Scott Tingle, chief of the Astronaut Office, both highlighted Morgan’s contributions to the agency. Morgan, a graduate of the United States Military Academy at West Point and a former emergency physician, stated that while leaving the astronaut corps was bittersweet, he was excited to continue serving his country as a leader in the U.S. Army.
