Bolden was selected as an astronaut in 1980, and his four space shuttle flights included the Discovery mission launched in April 1990 to deploy the Hubble Space Telescope. He also commanded the Discovery mission launched in February 1994, the first flight to include a Russian cosmonaut as a mission specialist. In 2009, US president Barack Obama appointed Bolden as NASA’s administrator. On 18 August 2012 he was the first human to have his voice transmitted to Mars and then beamed back to Earth. Bolden left NASA in January 2017.