Dale Gardner
- STS -8 ( 1983)
- STS -51 -A ( 1984)
Dale Allan Gardner ( born November 8, 1948 in Fairmont, Minnesota, USA, † February 19, 2014 in Colorado) was an American astronaut.
Training
Gardner received in 1970 a Bachelor in Technical Physics from the University of Illinois at Urbana- Champaign. Then Gardner joined the United States Navy and was trained there for naval aviation.
Astronauts activity
In January 1978, Gardner was selected by NASA as an astronaut candidate. After training as a mission specialist, he worked in the software department and was in the support crew for the Space Shuttle mission STS- fourth
STS -8
On August 30, 1983 Gardner flew aboard the space shuttle Challenger for the first time into space. The mission STS -8 was the first flight of a space shuttle, in which both the start and the landing at night were made. The cargo consisted of the Indian multipurpose Insat 1-B.
STS 41 -H
The mission STS -41 -H should be carried out in September 1984 on behalf of the U.S. Department of Defense or instead expose a TDRS satellites. Due to problems with the IUS upper stage, the mission was canceled. As the occupying Frederick Hauck, David Walker, Joseph Allen, Anna Fisher, Dale Gardner and payload specialists of the U.S. Air Force Gary Payton and Frank Casserino were nominated. As a replacement payload specialist Daryl Joseph was provided. The crew without payload specialists went on mission STS -51 -A.
STS -51 -A
His second spaceflight graduated from Gardner aboard Discovery on 8 November to 16 November 1984. During mission STS -51 -A two satellites were exposed and captured two other satellites, again, the case of mission STS -41 - B on a had been exposed to low orbit. To capture the two satellites took Gardner and his colleague Joseph Allen two spacewalks.
STS -62 -A
STS -62- A should start in July 1986 as the first shuttle mission from Space Launch Complex 6 at Vandenberg Air Force Base. Gardner would have flown with the Discovery on the first shuttle mission in a polar orbit. The flight was canceled after the U.S. Department of Defense withdrew from the shuttle program after the Challenger disaster. Even later launched no more shuttle from Vandenberg Air Force Base.
According to the NASA
In October 1986, Gardner left NASA and took his military service with the U.S. Strategic Command in Colorado Springs again. He served two years in the Space Control Operations Division at the Cheyenne Mountain Air Force Base and moved in June 1989 at the Peterson Air Force Base for Space Control. In October 1990 he moved to the private sector to TRW, where he worked as a program manager in the Department of Space and defense technology.
Private
Dale Gardner was the father of two children. He was divorced and died in February 2014 in Colorado from a brain aneurysm.