On Friday, September 18, 2015, former astronaut Michael J. Massimino, will speak at a midday assembly.

The retired astronaut is now an engineering professor at Columbia University, and will look familiar to “The Big Bang Theory” television show watchers. Massimino appeared as himself in the series when Howard went to space several seasons ago.

Massimino, who has M.S. and PhD. degrees from MIT and a B.S. degree from Columbia University, is a former NASA astronaut who went on two space shuttle flights to repair the Hubble Telescope. His space flights took place in 2002 and 2009.

The PBS program, “NOVA,” followed Massimino and the other astronauts who took the Atlantis to work on the Hubble space station in 2009.  During an interview with PBS before the “NOVA” program aired, Massimino said that “NOVA” followed the astronauts for a year and a half, covering the training for the Hubble mission, the astronauts getting ready for the flight and   their activities on the mission.

“We changed batteries, changed gyroscopes and repaired some instruments on Hubble,” said Massimino in the PBS interview. He also mentioned that he took five space walks, one of which was five hours long, on the Hubble mission.

Follow Massimino on Twitter at: @Astro_Mike, where he writes about all things space and science. Or explore space and Hubble by checking out any of the space related books on display in the IRC near the Reference Desk.

Display created by Jeanette Clark and Connie James-Jenkin.