Bruce McCandless

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Bruce McCandless
Bruce McCandless
Country: United States
Organization: NASA
selected on April 4, 1966
( 5th NASA Group )
Calls: 2 space flights
Start of the
first space flight: 		3rd February 1984
Landing of the
last space flight: 		April 29, 1990
Time in space: 13d 0h 31min
EVA inserts: 2
EVA total duration: 12h 12min
retired on August 1990
Space flights

Bruce McCandless II (born June 8, 1937 in Boston , Massachusetts , †  December 21, 2017 ) was an American astronaut . He was the first person to float freely in space without a safety line.

Life

Bruce McCandless II was the son of US Navy officer Bruce McCandless (1911–1968), who was awarded the Medal of Honor during World War II . McCandless attended High School in Long Beach , California . After studying electrical engineering at Stanford University , he earned a degree in business administration. McCandless graduated from the US Naval Academy in Annapolis , Maryland in 1958 , where he was second best of 899 graduates in his class. He was then trained to be a marine pilot in Pensacola , Florida , and Kingsville , Texas . After completing his training in 1960, he served on the aircraft carriers USS Forrestal and USS Enterprise, among others . In 1964 he worked temporarily as a flight instructor in the Navy.

Astronaut activity

McCandless applied to NASA as an astronaut and was introduced with 18 others as a member of the fifth astronaut group in April 1966.

During the lunar flights of Apollo 10 and Apollo 11 in 1969 he worked as a liaison officer ( Capcom ). In this role he accompanied Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin's exit to the surface of the moon. In August 1969 he was appointed to the Apollo 14 support team and also worked as Capcom during the flight from January 31 to February 9, 1971.

McCandless received his first nomination for a reserve team on January 19, 1972 when he was appointed reserve pilot for the first Skylab crew Skylab 2 . He was not used, and so the Apollo program ended without being able to complete a space flight.

McCandless switched to the space shuttle program, where he concentrated on the development of a rocket backpack ( Manned Maneuvering Unit , MMU) that should allow people to move during spacecraft operations without a safety line.

Thanks to his MMU, McCandless floats freely and without a safety line in space during an outboard operation during the STS-41-B

McCandless took off on February 3, 1984 with the space shuttle Challenger for the STS-41-B mission . Together with Robert Stewart , he tested the MMU, making the first test flight on February 7th. McCandless was the first person to float completely free in space.

During the Atlantis mission STS-61-J, which was canceled by the Challenger disaster , McCandless was supposed to deploy the Hubble space telescope on his second space flight in October 1986 . This mission was made up for in April 1990 with the space shuttle Discovery, again with McCandless on board for the STS-31 mission .

McCandless left NASA on August 31, 1990. He later worked for Martin Marietta , which was transferred to Lockheed Martin in 1995 .

Bruce McCandless was married with two children.

See also

Web links

Commons : Bruce McCandless  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Space: The man with the jet backpack is dead. In: Deutsche Welle . December 23, 2017. Retrieved December 24, 2017 .
personal data
SURNAME McCandless, Bruce
ALTERNATIVE NAMES McCandless II, Bruce (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American astronaut
DATE OF BIRTH June 8, 1937
PLACE OF BIRTH Boston , Massachusetts
DATE OF DEATH December 21, 2017