Kent Rominger

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Kent Rominger
Kent Rominger
Country: United States
Organization: NASA
selected on March 31, 1992
(14th NASA Group)
Calls: 5 space flights
Start of the
first space flight: 		October 20, 1995
Landing of the
last space flight: 		May 1, 2001
Time in space: 67d 2h 58min
EVA inserts: No
retired on September 30, 2006
Space flights

Kent Vernon Rominger (born August 7, 1956 in Del Norte , Colorado , USA ) is a retired American astronaut .

Life

Rominger comes from a small town in the US state of Colorado; Del Norte is about 220 kilometers southwest of Colorado Springs . In 1974 Kent dropped out of high school and studied civil engineering at Colorado State University . After completing his bachelor's degree in 1978, he entered the US Navy and was trained as a naval aviator (he had already acquired a private pilot's license at college).

Following his pilot training, he attended an advanced course for the F-14 "Tomcat" , an air defense fighter mainly used on aircraft carriers. From October 1981 he was a member of the 2nd Combat Squadron (Navy designation VF-2, nickname "Bounty Hunters"), which served first on the " USS Ranger " and later on the " USS Kitty Hawk ". Before he left the VF-2, he graduated from the United States Navy Strike Fighter Tactics Instructor program in Miramar ( California ), where in 1986 he received the diploma of the tactical officer. Contrary to the official name Strike Fighter Tactics Instructor, this course has been known as "TOPGUN" since the film of the same name with Tom Cruise.

Rominger then took part in a training program for student test pilots in which the Naval Postgraduate School (NPS) in Monterey, California and the United States Naval Test Pilot School (USNTPS) on the US east coast participated. He studied aeronautical engineering at the NPS and at the same time attended a test pilot seminar at the USNTPS, which is located in Maryland on Naval Air Station Patuxent River. In 1987 the NPS awarded him a Masters and from the USNTPS he received the Test Pilot Certificate with Distinction. He then stayed in Patuxent River, where he took over the project management of the aircraft carrier suitability department. At the Strike Aircraft Test Directorate, he further developed the F-14 for use on aircraft carriers.

In September 1990, just a month after Iraqi troops invaded Kuwait and thus triggered the Second Gulf War , Rominger was transferred to the 211th Combat Squadron (Navy designation VF-211, nickname "Fighting Checkmates"). As an operations officer he was dispatched to the Persian Gulf as part of "Operation Desert Storm" on board the " USS Nimitz " . During his mission, which lasted from late February to late August 1991, he completed F-14 flights over Iraqi territory.

Astronaut activity

Rominger was introduced in March 1992 with the 14th NASA astronaut group as one of only four pilot pilots. 87 finalists emerged from a total of 2,054 applicants who met the formal selection criteria. They were invited to the Johnson Space Center (JSC) for tests, discussions and medical examinations in the fall of 1991 . Kent had registered for the first time for the 13th group of applicants, had also made it to the finals, but was not considered.

One year after completing the one-year basic astronaut training, he was set up as a pilot for STS-73 in November 1994 . This 16-day mission took place in late October / early November 1995. It was the second Spacelab flight under American leadership, called the "United States Microgravity Laboratory (USML) 2". In the double module, 16 main experiments were carried out in the research disciplines of materials, combustion, fluid physics and biotechnology.

In January 1996, just 73 days after the STS-73 landed, Rominger was given the mandate to pilot the STS-80 . On the last flight in 1996, the Wake Shield Facility was used for the third time, a saucer-shaped satellite that was deployed, flew freely next to the shuttle for some time, and then recaptured. In addition, the team suspended the ORFEUS-SPAS astronomy platform from Germany and brought it back on board towards the end of the flight. In contrast, two planned space exits could not be carried out due to technical problems.

Rominger's third space flight was STS-85 . Jeff Ashby was supposed to be a pilot on this mission. Without giving any reason, it was replaced by Rominger only six months before the start. During the twelve-day flight in August 1997, the German research platform CRISTA-SPAS was set free to study the upper atmosphere for over a week. In addition, the Japanese MFD (Manipulator Flight Demonstration) robot arm was tested by the astronauts.

STS-96 was Rominger's debut as a commander. The space shuttle Discovery carried out a logistics flight to the International Space Station (ISS) in the early summer of 1999 . Several tons of goods and equipment were hoisted into orbit in order to prepare everything for the arrival of the first crew.

Rominger's fifth mission took him to the ISS again. STS-100 took place exactly two years after its last flight and brought the Canadarm2 robot arm from Canada to the station. In addition to installing the arm, two and a half tons of equipment were delivered to the station with the Rafaello logistics module .

Rominger, who headed the astronaut office at NASA for the last four years, left the US space agency at the end of September 2006 and took on a position as vice president of the defense and space company Alliant Techsystems.

Rominger is married and has one child.

Honors

Rominger was inducted into the Astronaut Hall of Fame in 2015 .

See also

Web links

Commons : Kent Rominger  - Collection of Images, Videos and Audio Files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Space Coast Daily: NASA Inducts Four Heroes Into US Astronaut Hall Of Fame. June 1, 2015, accessed June 3, 2015 .
personal data
SURNAME Rominger, Kent
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Rominger, Kent Vernon
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American astronaut
DATE OF BIRTH 7th August 1956
PLACE OF BIRTH Del Norte , Colorado , USA