John M. Lounge

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John Lounge
John Lounge
Country: United States
Organization: NASA
selected on May 19, 1980
( 9th NASA Group )
Calls: 3 space flights
Start of the
first space flight: 		August 27, 1985
Landing of the
last space flight: 		December 10, 1990
Time in space: 20d 2h 23min
retired on June 20, 1991
Space flights

Mike Lounge (born June 28, 1946 in Denver , Colorado , † March 1, 2011 in Houston , Texas ) was an American astronaut .

education

Lounge received a bachelor's degree from the United States Naval Academy in 1969 and a master's in astrogeophysics from the University of Colorado at Boulder in 1970 .

Lounge went to the United States Navy in 1969 , where he also trained as a naval aviator. He was stationed on board the aircraft carrier USS Enterprise for nine months and flew a total of 99 combat missions in the Vietnam War . After another seven-month stationing on the aircraft carrier USS America in the Mediterranean, he returned to the US Naval Academy in 1974 as a physics instructor. In 1976 he was transferred to the Navy Space Project Office in Washington, DC . In 1978 he left the Navy.

Astronaut activity

From July 1978 Lounge worked as an engineer at the Johnson Space Center . After an unsuccessful application for the eighth astronaut group, he was selected in May 1980 by NASA as an astronaut candidate with the ninth group. He was then a member of the support teams for the first three shuttle missions STS-1 , STS-2 and STS-3 at the Kennedy Space Center . From 1989 to 1991 he was head of the Space Station Support Office, an office that represents the interests of space travelers in the construction and operation of the International Space Station .

STS-51-I

On August 27, 1985, Lounge started as a mission specialist on the space shuttle Discovery on its first flight into space . The five-man crew put three communications satellites into orbit. In addition, a defective satellite launched on the STS-51-D mission was captured, repaired and then relocated. To this end, two space exits were carried out by his astronaut colleagues James van Hoften and William Fisher .

STS-61-F

In May 1985, Lounge was nominated as a mission specialist for the STS-61-F mission . The space shuttle Challenger should have launched the Ulysses solar probe into space in May 1986 and brought it on course with a Centaur senior. However, the mission was canceled after the Challenger disaster .

STS-26

On September 29, 1988, Lounge took off again into space as a mission specialist on the space shuttle Discovery . After an interruption of over two and a half years caused by the Challenger disaster , the shuttle program was resumed with this mission. In addition to conducting a large number of experiments of all kinds, the mission exposed the TDRS-3 communications satellite . The landing was on schedule at Edwards AFB , California .

STS-35

On December 2, 1990, Lounge started as a mission specialist on the Columbia space shuttle . On this flight there were take-off delays, so that for the first time in history two space shuttles stood facing each other on the launch pads, ready for take-off. The main objective of the mission was astronomical observations with the devices of the ASTRO-1 platform in the range of UV and X-rays. There were some technical problems during the mission, for example the displays for aligning the ASTRO-1 telescopes did not work. The telescopes therefore had to be controlled from Earth. The scientific goals could still be achieved to about 70 percent.

According to NASA

In June 1991, Lounge left NASA and became director of Space Shuttle and Space Station Program Development for Boeing - NASA Systems. He later became vice president of the Spacehab Company.

Private

John Lounge was married and had three children.

death

On March 1, 2011, John Lounge died of complications from liver cancer.

See also

Web links

Commons : John M. Lounge  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files
personal data
SURNAME Lounge, John M.
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Lounge, John Michael; Lounge, Mike (nickname)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American astronaut
DATE OF BIRTH June 28, 1946
PLACE OF BIRTH Denver , Colorado, USA
DATE OF DEATH March 1, 2011
Place of death Houston , Texas, USA