Daniel W. Bursch
Daniel Wheeler " Dan " Bursch ( born July 25 1957 in Bristol, Pennsylvania, USA ) is a former American astronaut.
Bursch 1979 received a bachelor's degree in physics from the United States Naval Academy in 1991 and a Masters in Engineering from the Naval Postgraduate School. From 1979 to 1989 he served in the U.S. Navy, where he was trained as a pilot. His flight experience extends to over 3400 flight hours with more than 35 different aircraft.
Astronauts activity
After its selection by NASA in January 1990 he worked in development for the Space Shuttle and International Space Station, and as a CAPCOM in the Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center.
STS -51
On September 12, 1993, he started with the discovery in the mission STS -51 on its first flight into space. He sat there from the Advanced Communications Technology Satellite ( ACTS) and the Shuttle Pallet Satellite ( ORFEUS -SPAS ). The latter had American and German scientific experiments including an ultraviolet spectrometer on board. In a seven-hour spacewalk his colleague James Newman and Carl Walz tested tools and methods to repair the Hubble Space Telescope. After ORFEUS -SPAS was flown free for six days and thereby about 65 km away from the Discovery had, he was finally captured by Bursch using the robotic arm of the space shuttle again. After 158 orbits around Earth, the Discovery landed the first shuttle in the night at Kennedy Space Center
STS -68
For the STS- 68 he flew aboard the space shuttle Endeavour on September 30, 1994 in the space. It was the second flight of the Space Radar Laboratory. The two main instruments on board were the SIR-C/X-SAR ( Shuttle Imaging Radar-C/X-Band Synthetic Aperture Radar) and MAPS (Measurement of Air Pollution from Satellites ). On October 11, the space shuttle landed at Edwards Air Force Base in California.
STS -77
The STS -77 mission, launched on the Space Shuttle Endeavour on 19 May 1996 and was the fifth mission of the commercial Spacehab module. Therein, a dozen experiments in the fields of biology, electrical engineering and agriculture were carried out. Furthermore, the platform SPARTAN was exposed, which in turn was called the Inflatable Antenna Experiment ( IAE). This 14 million dollar IAE was an aluminum- coated plastic shell that by nitrogen gas in its actual form - was brought - a dish antenna. The ten-day company was the first flight, the (Consolidated Control Center CCC) was led from the start until the landing of the new control center in Houston.
ISS Expedition 4
Recently launched Bursch on 5 December 2001 as a flight engineer of the fourth long-term crew of Space Shuttle Endeavour (STS -108 ) to the International Space Station (ISS). Other members of the fourth ISS crew were Yuri Onufrienko and Carl Walz. On 25 January 2002, Bursch took along with Onufrienko a spacewalk and thereby brought six deflector shields for the control nozzles of the Zvezda Service Module on. Here also another amateur radio antenna and four scientific experiments were installed and replaced a device for measuring material from the nozzles. This spacewalk lasted five hours and 59 minutes. Only little shorter with 5 hours and 49 minutes was the next spacewalk, the lad took along with rolling on 20 February 2002. The Quest airlock has been tested and prepared for future exits. Another highlight of the ISS Expedition 4 was the visit of the space shuttle Atlantis in April 2002. This mission (STS- 110), the grid element S0 was brought and installed to the ISS. After a flight time of 195 days, 19 hours and 39 minutes turned lad on board the space shuttle Endeavour mission STS -111 on 19 June 2002 back to Earth. Bursch and Walz held so that by 2007 the record for the longest single U.S. spaceflight.
Private
Bursch and his wife Roni J. Patterson, have four children.