Francis Richard Scobee

Dick Scobee
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:	April 6, 1984
Landing of the last space flight:	April 13, 1984
Time in space:	6d 23h 40min
retired on	January 1986 (accident)
Space flights
STS-41-C (1984) STS-51-L (1986)

Francis Richard "Dick" Scobee (* 19th May 1939 in Cle Elum , Washington ; † 28. January 1986 in Cape Canaveral , Florida ) was a US -American astronaut who in the Challenger disaster was killed.

Military career

Scobee graduated from high school in 1957 and enlisted in the US Air Force (USAF). His original wish to study with the help of the USAF was denied. Admission to the military academy would have required a politician's recommendation, which he could not produce. Instead, he was trained as a mechanic by the Air Force. Later he was sent to Texas to Kelly Air Force Base offset, where he waited for the day the planes and in the evening two years the San Antonio Community College attended. With this additional degree, he managed to get a scholarship with which he enrolled at the University of Arizona . In 1965 he received a bachelor's degree in aerospace engineering.

Scobee was then trained to be a pilot at Moody Air Force Base in Georgia , received his license in 1966, and was then sent to the Vietnam War . Back in the USA, he was trained as a test pilot by the Air Force at the Aerospace Research Pilot School (ARPS) in California . After successfully completing his degree in 1972, he worked until his move to NASA at ARPS at Edwards Air Force Base on the further development of Boeing 747 machines , the X-24 experimental aircraft and the F-111 "Aardvark" . Scobee retired from active service in the Air Force with the rank of Lieutenant Colonel .

Astronaut activity

In January 1978, Scobee was selected from 8,079 applicants for the space shuttle program. Training for the 35 candidate astronauts (including the first six women in US space history) began in the fall of 1978 and was completed after one year.

In the spring of 1983 Scobee was set up as the pilot of flight STS-41-C . The weeklong mission took place in April of the following year. The main task was to catch the defective solar observation satellite SolarMax . The MMU jet backpack was used for the first time for the rescue, and it has proven itself well. The research platform LDEF (Long Duration Exposure Facility) had previously been suspended.

Scobee, whom his friends simply called "Scobs", was entrusted with the implementation of another mission just nine months after his maiden flight. As commander, he was in charge of STS-51-L . After the second communications satellite in the TDRS series was deployed ten hours after the launch, Halley's Comet , which is near the earth, should be observed. For this purpose, the SPARTAN satellite was on board, which was to be deployed on the third day of the flight so that the comet could be observed undisturbed for at least 40 hours. Just 73 seconds after takeoff on January 28, 1986, the shuttle exploded. All seven astronauts were killed.

Scobee was buried in Arlington National Cemetery on May 19, 1986 - his birthday . He left his wife June and two children. In honor of the astronaut, two Texas schools bear his name (The Dick Scobee Elementary and the Francis R. Scobee Junior High ). In addition, the Auburn Municipal Airport (Dick Scobee Field), a street in South Carolina (Dick Scobee Road) and the San Antonio College Planetarium in Texas were named after him (The Scobee Planetarium). In 2004 he was posthumously awarded the Congressional Space Medal of Honor .

Web links

Commons : Dick Scobee  - collection of images, videos and audio files

• Short biography of Francis Richard Scobee at spacefacts.de
• NASA biography of Francis Richard Scobee (English; PDF)
• Biography of Francis Richard Scobee in the Encyclopedia Astronautica (English)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Arlington Cemetery grave site (English)