John M. Lounge
- STS -51 -I ( 1985)
- STS -26 (1988 )
- STS -35 ( 1990)
Mike Lounge ( born June 28, 1946 in Denver, Colorado, † March 1, 2011 in Houston, Texas) was an American astronaut.
Training
Lounge went 1969 on the United States Navy, where he was also trained as Naval Aviator. He was nine months stationed aboard the aircraft carrier USS Enterprise and flew it a total of 99 combat missions in the Vietnam War. After another seven-month deployment on the aircraft carrier USS America in the Mediterranean, he returned in 1974 to the U.S. Naval Academy back as an instructor in physics. In 1976, he became the Navy Space Project Office to Washington, DC displaced. In 1978 he retired from the Navy.
Astronauts activity
Since July 1978 lounge was employed as an engineer at the Johnson Space Center. After an unsuccessful bid for the eighth astronaut group he was in May 1980 selected by NASA as an astronaut candidate with the ninth group. Subsequently he was a member of the support team for the first three shuttle missions STS -1, STS -2 and STS-3 at Kennedy Space Center. From 1989 to 1991 he was director of the Space Station Support Office, an office that represents the interests of space travelers during the construction and operation of the International Space Station.
STS -51 -I
August 27, 1985 started as a mission specialist lounge with the space shuttle Discovery on its first flight into space. The five-member crew launched three communications satellites into orbit. In addition, a suspended with the mission STS -51- D defective satellite was captured, repaired and exposed again. These two spacewalks were performed by his fellow astronaut James van Hoften and William Fisher.
STS -61- F
In May 1985, Lounge was nominated as a Mission Specialist for mission STS -61 -F. The Space Shuttle Challenger would bring in May 1986, the Ulysses solar probe into space and to bring a Centaur upper stage on course. The mission was canceled after the Challenger disaster.
STS -26
On September 29 In 1988 Lounge as a mission specialist aboard the space shuttle Discovery into space again. After a break of about two and a half years, due to the Challenger disaster, the shuttle program was resumed with this mission. In addition to performing a variety of experiments of all kinds, the Mission of the communications satellite TDRS -3. The landing was planned in Edwards AFB, California.
STS -35
On 2 December 1990 saw lounge as a mission specialist aboard the space shuttle Columbia into space. During this flight, there were start-up delays, so that the first time in history, two space shuttles faced ready on the launch pads. The main objective of the mission were astronomical observations with the instruments of the ASTRO -1 platform in the UV and X-rays. During the mission, there were some technical problems, so functioned as the display for aligning the ASTRO -1 telescopes not. The telescopes therefore had to be controlled from Earth. However, the scientific objectives could still be achieved at around 70 percent.
According to the NASA
In June 1991 Lounge retired from NASA and became Director of the Space Shuttle and Space Station Program Development for Boeing - NASA system. He later became Vice President of Spacehab Company.
Private
John lounge was married and the father of three children.
Death
On 1 March 2011 John Lounge died as a result of liver cancer.