Born Mar. 17, 1936, in Chicago, 111. American pilot and astronaut. Lieutenant commander in the navy.
Mattingly graduated from Edison Junior College in Miami, Fla., and Auburn University in Alabama in 1958, receiving a bachelor’s degree in aeronautical engineering. In the same year he began serving as a pilot in the US Navy. Prior to his assignment in 1966 to the group of astronauts of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, he graduated from the Aerospace Research Pilot School. From Apr. 16 to 27, 1972, with J. Young and C. Duke, he completed a flight to the moon as pilot of the command module of the Apollo 16 spacecraft. Spending more than five days in lunar orbit, he took photographs of the moon and probed its atmosphere. At a distance of 300,000 km from the earth, he walked in space for 62 minutes.