Paul W. Richards

• STS- 102 (2001)

Paul William Richards ( born May 20, 1964 in Scranton, Pennsylvania, USA) is an American astronaut.

Career

Richards studied mechanical engineering and in 1987 received a bachelor's degree from Drexel University in 1991 and a master's degree from the University of Maryland.

From 1983 to 1987 he worked as an engineer with the United States Navy. In 1987 he came to the Goddard Space Flight Center ( GSFC ) of NASA.

Astronauts activity

In April 1996, Richards was selected by NASA as an astronaut candidate and then trained as mission specialists.

On 8 March 2001 Richards aboard the space shuttle Discovery on its first flight into space. This mission (STS -102) to the International Space Station (ISS), the first long-duration crew was replaced by a new crew and brought back to Earth. In addition, the multi-purpose logistics module Leonardo was taken with the ISS to supply the station with supplies. Richards took a spacewalk, in which he installed an External Stowage Platform ( ESP -1) and a spare ammonia coolant pump on the outside of the Destiny module with Andrew Thomas.

After his space flight he was still in the backup crew for the ISS crew 7 In February 2002, however, he retired from the active NASA astronaut corps and is currently Observatory Manager for the Geostationary -Operational -Environmental -satellite project ( GOES ) on Goddard Space Flight Center.

Private

Paul Richards is married and has four children.