STS-42 Launch
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STS-42 Launch
STS-4 was the fourth NASA Space Shuttle mission, and also the fourth for Space Shuttle ''Columbia''. Crewed by Ken Mattingly and Henry Hartsfield, the mission launched on June 27, 1982, and landed a week later on July 4, 1982. Due to parachute malfunctions, the SRBs were not recovered. STS-4 was the final test flight for the Space Shuttle; it was thereafter officially declared to be operational. ''Columbia'' carried numerous scientific payloads during the mission, as well as military missile detection systems. Crew STS-4, being the last test flight of the Space Shuttle, was also the last to carry a crew of two astronauts. Commander Ken Mattingly had previously flown as Command Module Pilot on Apollo 16, and was also the original Command Module Pilot for Apollo 13 before being replaced by his backup, Jack Swigert. Hartsfield was a rookie astronaut who had transferred to NASA in 1969 after the cancellation of the Air Force's Manned Orbiting Laboratory (MOL) program. He ...
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Space Transportation System
The Space Transportation System (STS), also known internally to NASA as the Integrated Program Plan (IPP), was a proposed system of reusable crewed space vehicles envisioned in 1969 to support extended operations beyond the Apollo program. (NASA appropriated the name for its Space Shuttle Program, the only component of the proposal to survive Congressional funding approval). The purpose of the system was two-fold: to reduce the cost of spaceflight by replacing the current method of launching capsules on expendable rockets with reusable spacecraft; and to support ambitious follow-on programs including permanent orbiting space stations around Earth and the Moon, and a human landing mission to Mars. In February 1969, President Richard Nixon appointed a Space Task Group headed by Vice President Spiro Agnew to recommend human space projects beyond Apollo. The group responded in September with the outline of the STS, and three different program levels of effort culminating with a ...
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Space Shuttle Solid Rocket Booster
The Space Shuttle Solid Rocket Booster (SRB) was the first solid-propellant rocket to be used for primary propulsion on a vehicle used for human spaceflight. A pair of these provided 85% of the Space Shuttle's thrust at liftoff and for the first two minutes of ascent. After burnout, they were jettisoned and parachuted into the Atlantic Ocean where they were recovered, examined, refurbished, and reused. The Space Shuttle SRBs were the most powerful solid rocket motors to ever launch humans. The Space Launch System (SLS) SRBs, adapted from the shuttle, surpassed it as the most powerful solid rocket motors ever flown, after the launch of the Artemis-1 mission. Each Space Shuttle SRB provided a maximum thrust, roughly double the most powerful single-combustion chamber liquid-propellant rocket engine ever flown, the Rocketdyne F-1. With a combined mass of about , they comprised over half the mass of the Shuttle stack at liftoff. The motor segments of the SRBs were manufactured by ...
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George Nelson (astronaut)
George Driver "Pinky" Nelson (born July 13, 1950) is an American physicist, astronomer, science educator, and retired NASA astronaut. Early life and education Nelson was born on July 13, 1950, in Charles City, Iowa, but considers Willmar, Minnesota, to be his hometown. He graduated from Willmar Senior High School, Willmar, Minnesota, in 1968. He received a Bachelor of Science degree in Physics from Harvey Mudd College in 1972, and a Master of Science and a Doctor of Philosophy degrees in Astronomy from the University of Washington in 1974 and 1978, respectively. Nelson was a Boy Scout and earned the rank of First Class Scout. His wife, Susie, is from Alhambra, California. They have two daughters, Aimee Tess (born April 25, 1972) and Marti Ann (born February 27, 1975). Pinky enjoys playing golf, reading, swimming, running, and music. Research Nelson performed astronomical research at the Sacramento Peak Solar Observatory, Sunspot, New Mexico; the Astronomical Institute at ...
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Michael Coats
Michael Lloyd Coats (born January 16, 1946) is a former NASA astronaut (three spaceflights), raised in Riverside, California. From December 2005 to December 2012, he served as Director of the Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas. Early life and education Coats was born January 16, 1946, in Sacramento, California. He was raised in Riverside, California, and graduated from Ramona High School in 1964. He received a Bachelor of Science degree from the United States Naval Academy in 1968, a Master of Science degree in Administration of Science and Technology from George Washington University in 1977, and a Master of Science degree in Aeronautical Engineering from the U.S. Naval Postgraduate School in 1979.https://www.epnaao.com/BIOS_files/1-REGULAR%20MEMBERS-195/Coats-%20Michael%20L%20(2).pdf Organizations *Member, Society of Experimental Test Pilots; *Associate Fellow, American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics. Honors Coats was awarded the Defense Superior Service Med ...
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Roy D
Roy is a masculine given name and a family surname with varied origin. In Anglo-Norman England, the name derived from the Norman ''roy'', meaning "king", while its Old French cognate, ''rey'' or ''roy'' (modern ''roi''), likewise gave rise to Roy as a variant in the Francophone world. In India, Roy is a variant of the surname ''Rai'',. likewise meaning "king".. It also arose independently in Scotland, an anglicisation from the Scottish Gaelic nickname ''ruadh'', meaning "red". Given name * Roy Acuff (1903–1992), American country music singer and fiddler * Roy Andersen (born 1955), runner * Roy Andersen (South Africa) (born 1948), South African businessman and military officer * Roy Anderson (American football) (born 1980), American football coach * Sir Roy M. Anderson (born 1947), British scientific adviser * Roy Andersson (born 1943), Swedish film director * Roy Andersson (footballer) (born 1949), footballer from Sweden * Roy Chapman Andrews (1884–1960), American natu ...
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Johnson Space Center
The Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center (JSC) is NASA's center for human spaceflight (originally named the Manned Spacecraft Center), where human spaceflight training, research, and flight control are conducted. It was renamed in honor of the late US president and Texas native, Lyndon B. Johnson, by an act of the United States Senate on February 19, 1973. It consists of a complex of 100 buildings constructed on in the Clear Lake Area of Houston, which acquired the official nickname "Space City" in 1967. The center is home to NASA's astronaut corps, and is responsible for training astronauts from both the US and its international partners. It houses the Christopher C. Kraft Jr. Mission Control Center, which has provided the flight control function for every NASA human spaceflight since Gemini 4 (including Apollo, Skylab, Apollo–Soyuz, and Space Shuttle). It is popularly known by its radio call signs "Mission Control" and "Houston". The original Manned Spacecraft Center grew out ...
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Skylab
Skylab was the first United States space station, launched by NASA, occupied for about 24 weeks between May 1973 and February 1974. It was operated by three separate three-astronaut crews: Skylab 2, Skylab 3, and Skylab 4. Major operations included an orbital workshop, a solar observatory, Earth observation, and hundreds of experiments. Unable to be re-boosted by the Space Shuttle, which was not ready until 1981, Skylab's orbit eventually decayed, and it disintegrated in the atmosphere on July 11, 1979, scattering debris across the Indian Ocean and Western Australia. Overview Skylab was the only space station operated exclusively by the United States. A permanent station was planned starting in 1988, but funding for this was canceled and replaced with United States participation in an International Space Station in 1993. Skylab had a mass of with a Apollo command and service module (CSM) attached and included a workshop, a solar observatory, and several hundred life sc ...
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Flight Controller
Flight controllers are personnel who aid space flight by working in such Mission Control Centers as NASA's Mission Control Center or ESA's European Space Operations Centre. Flight controllers work at computer consoles and use telemetry to monitor various technical aspects of a space mission in real time. Each controller is an expert in a specific area and constantly communicates with additional experts in the "back room". The flight director, who leads the flight controllers, monitors the activities of a team of flight controllers, and has overall responsibility for success and safety. This article primarily discusses NASA's flight controllers at the Johnson Space Center (JSC) in Houston. The various national and commercial flight control facilities have their own teams, which may be described on their own pages. NASA's flight controllers The room where the flight controllers work was called the mission operations control room (MOCR, pronounced "moh-ker"), and now is calle ...
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Manned Orbiting Laboratory
The Manned Orbiting Laboratory (MOL) was part of the United States Air Force (USAF) human spaceflight program in the 1960s. The project was developed from early USAF concepts of crewed space stations as reconnaissance satellites, and was a successor to the canceled Boeing X-20 Dyna-Soar military reconnaissance space plane. Plans for the MOL evolved into a single-use laboratory, for which crews would be launched on 30-day missions, and return to Earth using a Gemini B spacecraft derived from NASA's Gemini spacecraft and launched with the laboratory. The MOL program was announced to the public on 10 December 1963 as an inhabited platform to demonstrate the utility of putting people in space for military missions; its reconnaissance satellite mission was a secret black project. Seventeen astronauts were selected for the program, including Major Robert H. Lawrence Jr., the first African-American astronaut. The prime contractor for the spacecraft was McDonnell Aircraft Corporati ...
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United States Air Force
The United States Air Force (USAF) is the air service branch of the United States Armed Forces, and is one of the eight uniformed services of the United States. Originally created on 1 August 1907, as a part of the United States Army Signal Corps, the USAF was established as a separate branch of the United States Armed Forces in 1947 with the enactment of the National Security Act of 1947. It is the second youngest branch of the United States Armed Forces and the fourth in order of precedence. The United States Air Force articulates its core missions as air supremacy, global integrated intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance, rapid global mobility, global strike, and command and control. The United States Air Force is a military service branch organized within the Department of the Air Force, one of the three military departments of the Department of Defense. The Air Force through the Department of the Air Force is headed by the civilian Secretary of the Air Force ...
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Jack Swigert
John Leonard Swigert Jr. (August 30, 1931 – December 27, 1982) was an American NASA astronaut, test pilot, mechanical engineer, aerospace engineer, United States Air Force pilot, and politician. In April 1970, as command module pilot of Apollo 13, he became one of twenty-four astronauts who flew to the Moon. Before joining NASA in 1966, Swigert was a civilian test pilot and fighter pilot in the Air National Guard. After leaving NASA, he ran for Senate but lost in a primary election against Bill Armstrong. Later he ran for Congress, but while running was diagnosed with cancer. He won the election for Colorado's new 6th district in 1982, but died before being sworn in. Early life John Leonard Swigert Jr. was born on August 30, 1931, in Denver, Colorado, to parents John Leonard Swigert Sr. (1903–1973) and Virginia Swigert (1906–1993). Swigert's father was an ophthalmologist. At the age of 14, he became fascinated by aviation. While he would have been content just watching ...
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