Barratt first came to NASA's
Johnson Space Center in May 1991 as a project physician working for
KRUG Life Sciences, serving on the Health Maintenance Facility Project as manager of the Hyperbaric and Respiratory Subsystems for the
Space Station Freedom project. In July 1992, he was hired by NASA as an
aviation medical examiner working in Space Shuttle Medical Operations. In July 1993, Barratt was one of a team of the first three Americans invited to witness the recovery of a
Soyuz spacecraft. Asked to help evaluate the potential of the Soyuz as a
Crew Return Vehicle for a NASA space station, he flew with the recovery team that picked up the crew of
Soyuz TM-16 after they landed in Kazakhstan. (The Soyuz was ultimately chosen as the return vehicle for the International Space Station). In January 1994, he was assigned to the
Shuttle-Mir Program. He spent over 12 months working and training in the
Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center in
Star City, Russia as one of two flight surgeons supporting
Norman Thagard and his backup
Bonnie Dunbar, a role that often included negotiations to resolve different approaches to medicine by NASA and Russian doctors. Barratt and fellow flight surgeon David Ward developed a Mir Supplemental Medical Kit to augment Russian equipment on Mir and developed a program of training for its use, taught to both NASA astronauts and Russian cosmonauts.
Expedition 19/20 '' service module of the International Space Station Barratt was assigned to the
Expedition 19 crew in February 2008 and launched to the International Space Station in March 2009 aboard
Soyuz TMA-14. His stay aboard the ISS continued until the end of
Expedition 20 in October 2009. During Expedition 20, Barratt performed both an EVA and IVA together with
Gennady Padalka. The first EVA, on June 5, 2009, lasted for 4 hours and 54 minutes and prepared the
Zvezda service module transfer compartment for the arrival of the
Poisk module, installed docking antenna for the module, photographed an antenna for evaluation on the ground, and photographed the Strela-2 crane. The second was an internal spacewalk (IVA) in the depressurized
Zvezda transfer compartment to replace one of the
Zvezda hatches with a docking cone in preparation for the docking of the
Poisk module later in 2009. This IVA lasted 12 minutes. Barratt returned to Earth on October 11, 2009 after spending 198 days, 16 hours, and 42 minutes in space on Soyuz TMA-14 along with Padalka and space tourist
Guy Laliberté.
STS-133 Barratt next flew to space as a
mission specialist on
STS-133, the final flight of
Space Shuttle Discovery. The mission launched on February 24, 2011, and landed on March 9, 2011. The mission transported several items to the space station, including the
Permanent Multipurpose Module Leonardo, which was left permanently docked at one of the station's ports. The shuttle also carried the third of four
ExPRESS Logistics Carriers to the ISS, as well as a
humanoid robot called
Robonaut. During the mission Barratt was in charge of robotics activities. The total duration of STS-133 was 12 days, 19 hours, and 4 minutes.
Expedition 70/71/72 Barratt made a second long-duration mission to the International Space Station as a flight engineer on the
Expedition 70,
71, and
72 crew and also served as the pilot on the
SpaceX Crew-8 mission, which launched on March 4, 2024. The mission successfully splashed down on October 25, 2024, concluding a nearly eight-month science mission. == Personal life ==