NC native aboard space shuttle Endeavour

RALEIGH — A North Carolina native is on the crew of the space shuttle Endeavour as it flies toward the international space station.

Statesville native Dr. Tom Marshburn is the medical officer for the seven-member crew that waited through five delays until the shuttle finally launched Wednesday.

Marshburn is a former emergency room doctor who became a NASA flight surgeon in 1994. He worked with U.S. astronauts who went to the Russian Mir space station and later shuttle and international space station crews. He became an astronaut in 2004.

The 48-year-old Marshburn is on his first space voyage and is scheduled to perform three spacewalks.

He is a graduate of Davidson College, the University of Virginia and Wake Forest University’s medical school.

(Copyright 2009 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)