David M. Walker

David Walker

Country:	United States United States
Organization:	NASA
selected on	January 16, 1978 ( 8th NASA Group )
Calls:	4 space flights
Start of the first space flight:	November 8, 1984
Landing of the last space flight:	September 18, 1995
Time in space:	30d 04h 27min
retired on	April 15, 1996
Space flights
STS-51-A (1984) STS-30 (1989) STS-53 (1992) STS-69 (1995)

David Mathieson Walker (born May 20, 1944 in Columbus , Georgia , † April 23, 2001 in Houston , Texas ) was an American astronaut .

Start of career

Walker graduated from Eustis High School in Eustis , Florida in 1962 . He then graduated from the United States Naval Academy with a Bachelor of Science degree in 1966 .

From 1966 to 1970 he was used in various positions in the US Navy, including on the aircraft carriers USS Enterprise and USS America , on which he flew the F-4 Phantom , including in the Vietnam War .

From December 1970 to 1971 he was trained as a test pilot at Edwards Air Force Base , then he served at the Naval Air Test Center of the US Navy, where he tested various variants of the F-4 and F-14 .

After further training he worked as an F-14 instructor at the Naval Air Station in Miramar , from 1975 he served on two missions with the USS America in the Mediterranean.

He had a flying experience of 7,500 flight hours, 6,500 of which in jets.

NASA

In 1978 he was elected to NASA's 8th astronaut group and trained as a space shuttle pilot.

STS-41-H

Walker received his first assignment to a space flight as a pilot on a US Department of Defense mission . A reconnaissance satellite called STS-41-H was supposed to be launched in September 1984. However, due to problems with the IUS satellite upper stage , the flight was canceled and the NASA astronauts were assigned to flight STS-51-A .

STS-51-A

On his first space mission, Walker flew into space on November 8, 1984 with the space shuttle Discovery . It was the Discovery's second flight. The flight was intended to launch two satellites and simultaneously brought two launched satellites from the STS-41-B mission back to Earth.

STS-61-G

Walker's second assignment was scheduled for May 1986. As the commander of the STS-61-G mission , he should have directed the launch of the Galileo spacecraft . Ronald Grabe, John Fabian and James van Hoften were planned as additional crew members. However, after the Challenger disaster in January 1986, all shuttle flights were suspended.

STS-30

On his second space flight in May 1989, Walker flew into space as the commander of Atlantis . The main task of the mission was to launch the Venus probe Magellan with an IUS upper stage shortly after the shuttle started. In the further course of the mission, one of the five main computers in orbit had to be replaced. STS-30 was the first mission in which the space shuttle was used to launch an interplanetary spacecraft.

STS-44

Walker was designated as the commander for the STS-44 mission. On May 5, 1989, however, there was an air incident in which Walker flew past a commercial aircraft in his T-38 jet only 30 m away. Because of this incident, Walker was removed from the STS-44 crew and replaced by Frederick Gregory .

STS-53

The third flight took him back into space on the Discovery . This was the last purely military flight of a space shuttle. The main payload was secret and was suspended six hours after takeoff at 19:18 UTC. Presumably it was a spy satellite for the reconnaissance of radio signals. The mass of the cargo designated as DOD-1 was given as 10.5 tons.

STS-69

He made his fourth flight from September 7th to 18th, 1995 with the Endeavor . During the eleven-day mission, the second multi-day free flight was carried out by the Wake Shield Facility (WSF), a saucer-shaped satellite that flies freely alongside the shuttle. An experiment was carried out in which a wafer-thin film was produced in the WSF in a perfect vacuum . In addition, the crew continued the astronomical satellite SPARTAN 201 and caught him again, led a six-hour spacewalk to test of assembly techniques for the International Space Station through and tested thermal improvements to the used space suits. At the same time, various experiments in biomechanics, biotechnology, biomedicine and agriculture were carried out.

Summary

No	mission	function	Flight date	Flight duration
1	STS-51-A	pilot	November 8 - November 16, 1984	7d 23h 44m
2	STS-30	commander	May 4th - May 8th 1989	4d 56h 28m
3	STS-53	commander	December 2 - December 9, 1992	7d 7h 19m
4th	STS-69	commander	September 7 - September 18, 1995	10d 20h 28m

According to NASA

Walker retired from the US Navy and NASA in 1996 and was employed as the vice president of several electronics companies in the years that followed. In 1999 he completely retired from professional life. He died of cancer in 2001.

He was buried in the famous American National Cemetery Arlington near Washington DC.

Private

Walker left behind his wife Paige and two children from his first marriage.

Web links

Commons : David Mathieson Walker - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Short biography of David M. Walker at spacefacts.de
NASA biography of David M. Walker (English; PDF)
Biography of David M. Walker in the Encyclopedia Astronautica (English)

Individual evidence

↑ NASA press release 90-037 dated July 9, 1990

personal data
SURNAME	Walker, David M.
ALTERNATIVE NAMES	Walker, David Mathieson (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION	American astronaut
DATE OF BIRTH	May 20, 1944
PLACE OF BIRTH	Columbus , Georgia
DATE OF DEATH	April 23, 2001
Place of death	Houston , Texas

[1] NASA press release 90-037 dated July 9, 1990