Ellison Shoji Onizuka

Ellison Onizuka
Country:	United States
Organization:	NASA
selected on	January 16, 1978 (8th NASA Group)
Calls:	1, plus STS-51-L
Start of the first space flight:	January 24, 1985
Landing of the last space flight:	January 27, 1985
Time in space:	3d 1h 33min
retired on	January 1986 (accident)
Space flights
STS-51-C (1984) STS-51-L (1986)

Ellison Shoji "El" Onizuka (born June 24, 1946 in Kealakekua , Big Island , Hawaii , †  January 28, 1986 in Cape Canaveral , Florida ) was an American astronaut who was killed in the Challenger disaster . Ellison Onizuka was the eldest son and the second youngest child of Masamitsu and Mitsue Onizuka. He had two older sisters and a younger brother.

He graduated from high school in 1964. He received a bachelor's degree in aerospace engineering in 1969 and a master's degree in the same subject at the end of the year.

Onizuka married Lorna Leiko Yoshida while he was graduating from the University of Colorado . With her he had two daughters.

Air force career

In January 1970 Onizuka joined the United States Air Force , where he worked as a flight test engineer and test pilot.

From August 1974 to July 1975 Onizuka attended the US Air Force Test Pilot School. In July 1975 he was called up to the flight test center at Edwards Air Force Base in California . Here he became a flight test engineer and later worked as a technical support manager. As a test pilot, Onizuka flew over 1700 hours.

NASA career

Onizuka was selected for the space program in January 1978 and completed a year of peer review and training in August 1979. He later worked on the orbiter test team and on the launch support team at the Kennedy Space Center for missions STS-1 and STS-2 . At NASA he worked in the team for software improvements for the shuttle electronics (SAIL). In addition, he was responsible for various missions as crew coordinator.

Onizuka remained a member of the US Air Force during his time with NASA and was selected to serve on the first flight crew for the US Department of Defense. The launch of STS-10 was planned for November 1983, but the flight had to be canceled due to delays in the secret payload. For July 1984 this military flight under the designation STS-41-E was put back into the program, but the mission was canceled a second time.

The third attempt was ultimately successful. Under the mission designation STS-51-C , the space shuttle Discovery took off on January 24, 1985. Onizuka was accompanied by Commander Ken Mattingly , Pilot Loren Shriver , Mission Specialist James Buchli and Payload Specialist Gary Payton . The mission lasted 74 hours and the exact process was kept secret.

Onizuka's grave in Honolulu

Onizuka was then selected for the STS-51-L mission with the space shuttle Challenger , which took off on January 28, 1986 at 11:38 a.m. local time from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The other crew members were Commander Dick Scobee , Pilot Michael J. Smith , Mission Specialists Ronald McNair and Judith Resnik , Payload Specialist Greg Jarvis, and Payload Specialist and Teacher Christa McAuliffe . The Challenger was torn apart by strong aerodynamic pressure when a leak in the fuel tank occurred 73 seconds after takeoff. All seven crew members died in the accident. At the time, NASA assumed that the probability of an accident during a take-off was 1 in 438. At the time of his death, Onizuka had the rank of Lieutenant Colonel.

The Onizuka Air Force Station Sunnyvale in California, the Onizuka Center for International Astronomy at Mauna Kea Observatory and the astronaut Ellison S. Onizuka Space Center at Kona International Airport in Hawaii were named after him.

In addition, an asteroid discovered by Edward LG Bowell on February 8, 1984 was named after him: (3355) Onizuka and a crater 29 km in diameter on the moon: Onizuka Crater . Little Tokyo in Los Angeles named a street after him, as did Clear Lake, where the street with his name frames the elementary school his daughters were attending at the time of the Challenger disaster.

Others

• Onizuka was portrayed by Keone Young in the controversial TV movie Challenger . This film was produced against the will of the relatives of the victims of the disaster.
• In the television series Star Trek: The Next Generation (episode: The Power of Paragraphs ) a shuttle that was used aboard the USS Enterprise bears his name.

Web links

Commons : Ellison Onizuka  - collection of images, videos and audio files

• Short biography of Ellison Shoji Onizuka at spacefacts.de
• NASA biography of Ellison Shoji Onizuka (English; PDF)
• Biography of Ellison Shoji Onizuka in the Encyclopedia Astronautica (English)