Astronaut Tim Kopra Falls Off Bike, Loses Spot on Shuttle Mission

One of NASA's top astronauts has been pulled off an upcoming space shuttle mission after falling off his bicycle last weekend.

NASA announced the rare swap on Wednesday, saying Tim Kopra will be replaced by Stephen Bowen, a veteran astronaut who was on the last shuttle flight back in May. That means he'll be the first-ever U.S. astronaut to fly back-to-back shuttle missions, MSNBC reported.

No shuttle astronaut has ever been added to a mission at the last minute either, just a little over a month before the Discovery's Feb. 24 scheduled liftoff. The spacecraft is heading to the International Space Station.

Astronaut Falls off Bike, loses spot on shuttle mission

Matt Stroshane, Getty Images

Space Shuttle Discovery mission specialist Tim Kopra won't be going into space next month because of a bicycle accident and has been replaced on the flight.

Kopra crashed his bike near his Houston home last Saturday. NASA hasn't released details of his injuries, but said the crash didn't involve any other vehicles. Some media have reported that he broke his hip. He's recuperating on indefinite sick leave.

The Discovery mission was likely to be Kopra's last chance to go up into space, before the entire shuttle fleet retires later this year. Kopra, a 47-year-old retired Army colonel, had been slated to be the mission's lead spacewalker, venturing out twice to perform maintenance on the orbiting space station. Bowen will take over those duties.

"He's disappointed, for sure," NASA's chief astronaut, Peggy Whitson, told Florida Today. "As anybody would be this close to flight."

NASA's rare swap-out of Kopra raises speculation about another top astronaut, Capt. Mark Kelly, husband of wounded congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords. Kelly is slated to command the Space Shuttle Endeavour's final voyage in April, a position that's considered an honor because it's the entire shuttle fleet's final flight. Kelly has missed some training to keep a vigil at his wife's beside in Tucson, Ariz., since she was shot Jan. 8.

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Kelly hasn't yet backed out of the mission and said in an interview recorded last weekend that ideally he would like to talk it over with his wife first. NASA named a backup commander last week, just in case.

"I'm hopeful that I will be able to rejoin my crew, finish getting ready for this mission and launch of April 19," Kelly told ABC News. "I mean, my first priority is her. You know, she needs me to be by her side."

Giffords is scheduled to be released from her Arizona hospital on Friday and will enter a rehabilitation facility in Houston -- the same city as the NASA facility where Kelly could conceivably pick his training back up.