Robert D. Cabana
- STS -41 (1990)
- STS -53 (1992)
- STS -65 ( 1994)
- STS-88 (1998)
Robert Donald "Bob" Cabana ( born January 23, 1949 in Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA ) is an American astronaut and manager of NASA.
Cabana received in 1971 a Bachelor's in Mathematics from the United States Naval Academy and then entered into a United States Marine Corps. After deployments as naval aviator in North Carolina and Iwakuni (Japan) in 1975, he returned to Pensacola (Florida ) back to where his training began, and received his pilot's license in September 1976. He attended the Naval Test Pilot School at the Naval Air Station Patuxent River in Maryland in 1981 and received his qualification as a test pilot. He was then employed in the Naval Air Test Center, also located on the Patuxent River base. Prior to his selection as an astronaut, he worked as an Assistant Operations Officer back in Iwakuni Japan. In August 2000 Cabana retired from the U.S. Marine Corps.
Astronauts activity
Cabana was selected by NASA as an astronaut candidate in June 1985. After his training as a shuttle pilot, he was up to November 1986 as a Software Coordinator for the Space Shuttle. He then worked for two and a half years as Deputy Head of Aircraft Operations at the Johnson Space Center (JSC ). Then he was in the Shuttle Avionics Integration Laboratory ( SAIL) and as a speaker connection ( CAPCOM ) for Shuttle missions operate.
From 1994 to 1997 Cabana was the head of the Astronaut Office.
STS -41
On October 6, 1990 Cabana began as a pilot of the space shuttle Discovery on its first flight into space. During this mission, the then heaviest payload, the Ulysses space probe has been suspended. Ulysses is a joint project of NASA and ESA to explore the sun.
STS -53
On 2 December 1992 Cabana flew again with the space shuttle Discovery into space. This mission was carried out on behalf of the U.S. Department of Defense with a secret payload.
STS -65
For the mission " International Microgravity Laboratory " (IML -2) he served as the commander of the Space Shuttle Columbia on July 8, 1994 in space. 82 experiments in the fields of biology and materials science were during the 15-day Spacelab flight on the program. On July 23, he landed at Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
STS -88
During his last space flight Cabana led on 4 December 1998 as commander of the space shuttle Endeavour the first shuttle mission to the ISS. Object of this mission is the second part of the International Space Station, the U.S. Unity connecting node to connect to the first, already located in the All Russian Zarya module, and thus to take the space station in operation. Was Three spacewalks (EVA ), the new module and other hardware were installed. In addition, the satellite Mighty Sat 1 ( U.S. Air Force) and SAC -A ( Argentina) were exposed.
Managerial work at NASA
After his last space flight in December 1998, Cabana served as deputy director of the so-called Flight Crew Operations Directorate, which will decide on the team composition of the individual missions. In October 1999, he came to the program for the International Space Station (ISS). From August 2001 to September 2002 he was under the Human Space Flight Program in Russia, where he acted as a contact NASA for the Russian space authorities.
After his return cabana was briefly deputy head of the ISS program and from November 2002 to March 2004 Director of Flight Crew Operations Directorate. He then took over as deputy director of JSC a new area. In October 2007 he took over the leadership of the NASA test facility John C. Stennis Space Center. Since October 26, 2008 Cabana is the director of the Kennedy Space Center.
Private
Robert Cabana and his wife Nancy have three children.