Albert Sacco Jr. (born May 3, 1949) is an American

chemical engineer In the field of engineering, a chemical engineer is a professional, equipped with the knowledge of chemical engineering, who works principally in the chemical industry to convert basic raw materials into a variety of products and deals with the ...

who flew as a Payload Specialist on the Space Shuttle ''Columbia'' on Shuttle mission STS-73 in 1995. Born in Boston, Massachusetts, Sacco completed a B.S. degree in chemical engineering from

Northeastern University Northeastern University (NU) is a private university, private research university with its main campus in Boston. Established in 1898, the university offers undergraduate and graduate programs on its main campus as well as satellite campuses in ...

in Boston in 1973, and then a Ph.D. degree in chemical engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1977. He then joined the faculty of the Worcester Polytechnic Institute, becoming a full professor and rising to department head in 1989. Sacco served as the Dean of the Edward E. Whitacre Jr. College of Engineering at Texas Tech University, from January 1, 2011 to August 16, 2022. Sacco flew as a payload specialist on STS-73, which launched on October 20, 1995, and landed at the Kennedy Space Center on November 5, 1995. Sacco was originally chosen as the payload specialist for the ill-fated STS-107 mission, which ended in the Space Shuttle ''Columbia'' disaster. He trained with the other six astronauts for two months until NASA and the U.S. government decided to replace him with Israeli payload specialist Ilan Ramon.

References

* http://www.che.neu.edu/faculty/dr_albert_sacco_jr/ American astronauts Northeastern University alumni MIT School of Engineering alumni Northeastern University faculty Texas Tech University faculty People from Boston 1949 births Living people Worcester Polytechnic Institute faculty People from Belmont, Massachusetts Space Shuttle program astronauts {{Astronaut-stub