Joseph R. Tanner

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Joseph Tanner
Joseph Tanner
Country: United States
Organization: NASA
selected on March 31, 1992
( 14th NASA Group )
Calls: 4 space flights
Start of the
first space flight:
November 3, 1994
Landing of the
last space flight:
September 21, 2006
Time in space: 43d 13h 16min
EVA inserts: 7th
EVA total duration: 1d 22h 29min
retired on August 2008
Space flights

Joseph Richard "Joe" Tanner (born January 21, 1950 in Danville , Illinois , USA ) is a former American astronaut .

Tanner comes from Danville, a small town about 200 kilometers south of Chicago , right on the border with the state of Indiana . The parents owned 50 acres there and Joe and his four brothers grew up there. Joe has British roots as his maternal grandfather comes from the small Welsh village of Llanddewi Brefi .

After elementary school, Tanner attended Danville High School, which he successfully completed in 1968. To study, he moved to the Urbana - Champaign campus west of Danville , where he studied mechanical engineering at the University of Illinois . A passionate swimmer, Tanner was the captain of the UIUC (University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign) swimming team. The UIUC's Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering awarded him a bachelor's degree in 1973 .

Upon completion of his studies, Tanner entered the US Navy and was trained as a naval pilot. In 1975 he was assigned to the 94th Attack Squadron as pilot of the A-7 "Corsair II" , which is stationed at Naval Air Station Lemoore in California . Together with other squadrons, the "Mighty Strikes" formed a flight formation that was deployed on the aircraft carrier "USS Coral Sea". Finally, he finished his active service in the Navy as an instructor at Training Squadron 4 in Pensacola ( Florida ).

In August 1984, Tanner was hired by the Johnson Space Center (JSC) in Houston, Texas, as an aircraft engineer and research pilot. At the nearby Ellington Field, the JSC airfield, he was mainly involved in training astronauts. He taught the budding shuttle pilots to land the space shuttle with the Shuttle Training Aircraft. He also worked as an aeronautical safety officer and was head of the pilots department. He had made it to the Deputy Chief of the Aircraft Operations Division at JSC, where he was responsible for managing the entire fleet of aircraft when he was elected to the astronaut corps.

Astronaut activity

Tanner always refers to Shepard's flight with Mercury-Redstone 3 in May 1961 when asked how long he wanted to be an astronaut. In order to fly, he signed up for the Navy. The application as a space traveler was only logical for him, because after all, a flight into earth orbit is the highest form of flight. Like most astronauts, Joe took several tries to get selected. When the 12th NASA group was searched in 1987, he had made it into the final selection. In March, the JSC invited him for interviews and medical examinations. But it was rejected.

Together with 18 other candidates, Tanner was presented to the public at the end of March 1992. Half a year later the one-year basic training began for the 14th astronaut group. After its completion, he was a full-fledged mission specialist and initially worked in the Shuttle Avionics Integration Laboratory (SAIL) before being set up for his first space flight in January 1994.

The shuttle flight STS-66 was called ATLAS-3, because it was the third mission of the Atmospheric Laboratory for Applications and Science that the Atlantis completed in November 1994. Seven experiments, which had already done their work on the previous ATLAS missions, examined the solar energy output and the chemical balance of the earth's atmosphere. During the flight, the German carrier SPAS was suspended for several days, which was also on the road with its two devices on behalf of ATLAS. One of these experiments also came from Germany - CRISTA (CRyogenic Infrared Spectrometers and Telescopes for the Atmosphere).

Tanner during a space exit

At the end of May 1995, Tanner was nominated for STS-82 along with the other three astronauts . Since then he has been training for the Space Exits (EVAs) that were used to repair the Hubble telescope . In February 1997, STS-82 carried out necessary maintenance and repair work on the reflector telescope that had been launched seven years earlier. Tanner and his colleague Harbaugh formed one of two EVA teams. The two exchanged electronic parts from Hubble on two exits for a total of 14 hours.

Just a few months after his second space flight, Tanner and a dozen other astronauts formed a group that was thoroughly prepared in the JSC's water tank for work outside the future International Space Station (ISS) .

From the fall of 1998, Tanner trained for his first flight to the ISS. STS-97 brought a grid structure to the ISS in December 2000, which is used to power the station. Together with his colleague Noriega, Tanner attached the solar cell-equipped element to the space station for three days. In total, the two worked 19 hours in free space.

With an experience of five exits with a total duration of over 33 hours, Tanner was transferred in 2001 to head the EVA department in the astronauts office.

In February 2002, Tanner was assigned to the crew of the STS-115 shuttle flight , which began on September 9, 2006. The main payload of the Atlantis was the 16-ton element P3 / P4 , with which the space station was expanded. During the mission, Tanner and Heide Stefanyshyn-Piper undertook two spacecraft missions totaling 13 hours. They mounted the P3 / P4 on the P1 carrier , made all the necessary connections and activated a cooling system. The mission ended after twelve days.

Tanner left NASA in August 2008. He now works as a lecturer at the University of Colorado at Boulder and as a freelance aerospace engineer.

Joe Tanner and his wife Martha have two grown sons.

See also

Web links

Commons : Joseph R. Tanner  - Collection of images, videos and audio files