Edward "Pete" Cleveland Aldridge Jr. is an aerospace engineer and former government official in the U.S. Defense Department. He was also selected as a payload specialist for the Space Shuttle mission STS-62-A, scheduled to launch in July 1986. The mission was canceled after the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster in January 1986, and Aldridge never flew.

A payload specialist (PS) was an individual selected and trained by commercial or research organizations for flights of a specific payload on a NASA Space Shuttle mission. People assigned as payload specialists included individuals selected by the research community, a company or consortium flying a commercial payload aboard the spacecraft, and non-NASA astronauts designated by international partners.