Henry Hartsfield
- STS -4 ( 1982)
- STS -41 -D ( 1984)
- STS -61- A ( 1985)
Henry Warren " Hank " Hartsfield, Jr. ( born November 21, 1933, Birmingham, Alabama, United States) is a former American astronaut.
Hartsfield attended West End High School in Birmingham (Alabama ). In 1954, he received a bachelor's degree in physics from Auburn University. He received a degree in physics from Duke University and a degree in aerospace engineering from the Air Force Institute of Technology. In 1971 he received a Masters in Engineering from the University of Tennessee.
1955 Hartsfield joined the United States Air Force. During this time he was stationed, among other things on the U.S. Air Force base in Bitburg in Germany. Later he was trained at Edwards Air Force Base as a test pilot and was there then even trainers.
Astronauts activity
1966 Hartsfield was selected by the Air Force as an astronaut for the military space station project Manned Orbiting Laboratory ( MOL). After setting the program in June 1969, he came to NASA.
At first he was a member of the support crews for the Apollo 16 lunar mission and for all manned missions to the Skylab space station.
STS -4
After serving for the Space Shuttle missions STS -2 and STS-3 only as a replacement pilot, Hartsfield flew on 27 June 1982 as a pilot of the Space Shuttle Columbia for the first time even into space. In this fourth and final test flight of Columbia, he was accompanied by Commander Thomas K. Mattingly. Mission objectives of this seven-day flight was further tests to launch and re-entry of the space shuttle as well as further studies of thermal endurance testing of the orbiter. Furthermore, it was lifted out of the cargo hold with the robot arm of the orbiter, the box-shaped IEC male experiment ( Induced Environment Contamination Monitor). In addition to a secret cargo for the U.S. Department of Defense, the first active GAS container was ( GetAway Special) on board, which contained nine experiments. The astronauts also conducted medical experiments on himself and trained tightening the space suits for spacewalks in future shuttle missions.
STS -41 -D
Hartsfield, the commander of the space shuttle Discovery was on its maiden flight on 30 August 1984. Besides him the other five crew members were all Space newbies. During the six- day mission, the three satellites SBS -D, SYNCOM IV -2 were (also known as LEASAT 2) exposed and Telstar 3 -C. In addition, the solar cell 1 ODST experiment and the experiment CFES - III were performed to investigate the crystal growth. In addition, recordings were made with an accompanying IMAX camera.
STS -61 -A
In the German Spacelab mission D-1 Hartfield was the commander of the last successful Challenger flight. On October 30, 1985, the largest of eight persons occupying a single space ship ever flew into space. In this seven- day mission, 75 experiments in the fields of medicine, materials science, biology and navigation were conducted. In addition, the satellite GLOMR (Global Low Orbiting Message Relay) has been suspended.
More NASA career
From 1986 to 1987 Hartsfield was deputy head of the Astronaut Office and in 1987 Deputy Director of Flight Crew Operations. In 1989 he was briefly employed by the "Office of Space Flight " in the NASA Headquarters and 1990 he worked at the project office for the space station at the Marshall Space Flight Center. In 1991 he returned to the Johnson Space Center, where he worked in the program for the now "Freedom" called Space Station.
According to the NASA
After retiring from NASA, he went as Vice President of Aerospace Engineering Services to Raytheon Technical Services to Houston.
Private
Henry Hartsfield and his wife Judy have two grown daughters.