William S. McArthur

• STS -58 (1993)
• STS -74 (1995)
• STS -92 (2000)
• Soyuz TMA- 7 (2005/2006)   ISS Expedition 12

William Surles "Bill" McArthur, Jr. ( born July 26, 1951 in Laurinburg, North Carolina, United States) is an American astronaut.

McArthur graduated in 1969 from high school and then studied applied science and engineering at the United States Military Academy at West Point. After completing his bachelor's exam in the summer of 1973 he served two years in the Army Base Fort Bragg.

1975 McArthur received at the Army Aviation Flight School pilot training, which he completed in June 1976 as the best in class. The next two years he was a member of the 2nd Infantry Division in South Korea, and served as head of a reconnaissance squadron, as well as a flight brigade commander. In 1978 he returned to his homeland and came to a battalion in Georgia. There he led a platoon and was operations officer.

Then William McArthur enrolled at Georgia Institute of Technology and studied aviation and space technology. In 1983, he earned a Masters and went back as an assistant professor to West Point. He taught three years at the Department of Mechanics of the United States Military Academy before moving to Maryland. At the Marine Station Patuxent River, he was educated at the United States Naval Test Pilot School as a test pilot.

Immediately after his test pilot license McArthur took place in August 1987 a job at NASA. He worked as a test engineer at the Johnson Space Center (JSC ) for the takeoff and landing phases of the Space Shuttle.

Astronauts activity

In January 1990, McArthur was selected by NASA as an astronaut candidate, graduating in July 1991, the one-year training mission specialist from. His first flight took place in 1993, when he participated in the mission STS -58. Then he took to the missions STS -74 in 1995 and STS -92 in 2000 in part.

On 1 October 2005 he launched with Soyuz TMA -7 on the International Space Station, where he spent 12,187 days in connection with the expedition.