Portrait of Jim Adamson Courtesy of NASA

James Adamson is an American astronaut who was born in New York in 1946. He attended military school from 1965-1969 and studied engineering. From 1969-1980 he stayed in the Army as an aviator and professor. From 1980-1984 he worked at NASA's Johnson Space Center as a navigation and guidance control officer.

Adamson joined the astronaut team in 1984. He has flown on two space missions. The first mission, STS-28, was aboard space shuttle Columbia in 1989. He and four other astronauts deployed a defensive satellite system into low Earth orbit.

Adamson served as mission specialist aboard STS-43 in 1991. He helped deploy the Tracking and Data Relay Satellite during this nine-day mission. Adamson has logged over 334 hours in space.