Christopher J. "Fergy" Ferguson (born September 1, 1961) is a Boeing commercial astronaut and a retired United States Navy Captain and NASA astronaut. He was the pilot of Space Shuttle Atlantis on his first mission to space, STS-115, which launched on September 9, 2006 and returned to Earth on September 21, 2006. He then commanded STS-126 aboard . In 2011, he was assigned as commander of STS-135, which was the final mission of the space shuttle program. On December 9, 2011, he retired from NASA and became director of Crew and Mission Operations for Boeing's Commercial Crew Program. In August 2018, Ferguson was assigned to the first test flight of the Boeing CST-100 Starliner, although he stepped down from the mission in October 2020. Education Ferguson was born September 1, 1961, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He attended Archbishop Ryan High School, from which he graduated in 1979. He received a Bachelor of Science degree in mechanical engineering from Drexel University in 1984, and earned his Master of Science degree in aeronautical engineering from the U.S. Naval Postgraduate School in 1991. Military career Ferguson was commissioned from the Navy ROTC program at the University of Pennsylvania. He received his Naval Aviator wings in NAS Kingsville, Texas in 1986 and was ordered to the F-14 Tomcat training squadron in Virginia Beach, Virginia. After a brief period of instruction, he joined the 'Red Rippers' of VF-11 deploying to the North Atlantic, Mediterranean and Indian Ocean on board the aircraft carrier . While with VF-11, he also attended the Navy Fighter Weapons School (TOPGUN). He was selected for the United States Naval Test Pilot School program in 1989 and graduated in 1992. Through June 1994 he was assigned to the Weapons Branch of the Strike Aircraft Test Directorate at the Naval Air Station Patuxent River, Maryland, where he served as the project officer for the F-14D weapon separation program, becoming the first pilot to release several types of air-to-ground weapons from the Tomcat. He served one year as an instructor at the Naval Test Pilot School before joining the 'Checkmates' of VF-211 in 1995 and completing a deployment to the Western Pacific and Persian Gulf in defense of the Iraqi no-fly zone on board . He briefly served as an F-14 logistics officer for the Atlantic Fleet prior to his selection to the space program. NASA career Ferguson was selected for astronaut training in 1998