About Ken Mattingly
Thomas Kenneth Mattingly II (March 17, 1936 – October 31, 2023) was an American aviator, aeronautical engineer, test pilot, rear admiral in the United States Navy, and astronaut who orbited the Moon on Apollo 16 and flew on the STS-4 and STS-51-C missions. Born in Chicago, Illinois, Mattingly was replaced as Apollo 13 Command Module Pilot (CMP) three days before launch, then helped NASA bring the crippled spacecraft home. Mattingly flew as CMP for Apollo 16 and made 64 lunar orbits, becoming one of the 24 Apollo astronauts to reach the Moon. During Apollo 16's return to Earth, Mattingly performed an extravehicular activity to retrieve film cassettes from the command and service module. It was the second "deep space" EVA in history, at great distance from any planetary body. Mattingly and his Apollo 16 commander, John Young, are the only astronauts to have flown to the Moon and also orbited the Earth on the Space Shuttle. At first, Mattingly was part of the support crew for Apollo 8. Aviation became part of Mattingly's life from a very young age; he later recalled that his "earliest memories...all had to do with airplanes".
Biography source: Wikipedia. The profile adds birthday-specific historical context from the Celebs Birthday Today editorial database.