Captain Christopher J. Ferguson (’84, MEM), piloted the Space Shuttle Atlantis for NASA’s STS-115 mission. The shuttle launched on Saturday, September 9 for its 11-day mission and return to NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida on September 21.
During the mission, the six-member crew traveled to the International Space Station and installed an integrated P3/P4 truss segment with its two large solar arrays that will provide one-fourth of the total power generation capability of the completed station. The crew has been preparing for this flight for the past four years.

Captain Ferguson is one of approximately 100 American astronauts and the third from Drexel University. He was selected by NASA in 1998 and is stationed at the Johnson Space Center in Houston. This was first space mission.
Other astronauts from Drexel include James Bagian and Paul Richards.