Richard N. Richards
- STS -28 ( 1989)
- STS -41 (1990)
- STS -50 ( 1992)
- STS -64 ( 1994)
Richard Noel "Dick" Richards ( born August 24, 1946 in Key West, Florida, USA ) is a former American astronaut.
Training
Richards received in 1969 a Bachelor in Chemical Engineering from the University of Missouri in 1970 and a master's degree in aeronautical engineering from the University of West Florida.
Military career
1969 Richards joined the United States Navy and was trained there for naval aviation. From 1970 he was at the Norfolk Naval Air Station stationed in Virginia and from 1973 on the aircraft carriers USS America and USS Saratoga in the North Atlantic and the Mediterranean. In 1976 he came to the U.S. Naval Test Pilot School to Maryland. After completing his education there, he worked for the next three and a half years as a test pilot, mainly in the field of automatic landings on aircraft carriers.
Astronauts activity
After an unsuccessful bid for the eighth astronaut group in May 1980 Richards was selected by NASA as an astronaut candidate with the ninth group. In April 1995, Richards left the astronaut office and moved to the Space Shuttle Program Office at the Johnson Space Center. There he served as a mission manager for the second servicing mission to the Hubble Space Telescope (STS -82) and the second Tethered Satellite System mission (STS -75). In 1997 he became manager of Space Shuttle Program Integration, this activity included the daily operational planning of all shuttle missions. He had thereby also the Chairman of the flight mission management team.
STS -61- E
This mission aboard the space shuttle Columbia had in March 1986, the ASTRO -1 Spacelab mission are to bring into space. After the Challenger disaster the flight was canceled. The team would have consisted of Jon McBride, Richard Richards, David Leestma, Jeffrey Hoffman, Robert Parker, Samuel Durrance and Ronald Parise.
STS -28
August 8, 1989 Richards flew aboard the space shuttle Columbia for the first time into space. STS -28 was a flight for the U.S. Department of Defense with secret payload.
STS -41
On October 6, 1990 Richards began as commander of the space shuttle Discovery 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 -50
During the mission, STS -50 Commander Richards was on the space shuttle Columbia. The mission launched on 25 June 1992. The primary payload was the Microgravity Laboratory USML -1, a manned Spacelab module. There have been numerous experiments for the study of crystal growth of zeolite, the surface tension of physics and human physiology.
STS -64
His fourth flight took Richards in September 1994 as commander of the space shuttle Discovery. As part of STS- 64, the laser optical radar system LITE were tested. A further object was the launching and recovering of astronomical research satellites SPARTAN -201, a free- flying satellites to investigate the solar wind and the solar corona. After eleven days in space, he landed on 20 September 1994 at Edwards Air Force Base in California.
According to the NASA
In August 1998, Richards left NASA and moved to the Space Shuttle division of Boeing. 2007 Richards went from Boeing to retire.