Kevin Anthony Ford

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Kevin Ford
Kevin Ford
Country: United States
Organization: NASA
selected on July 26, 2000
( 18th NASA Group )
Calls: 2 space flights
Start of the
first space flight: 		August 29, 2009
Landing of the
last space flight: 		March 16, 2013
Time in space: 157d 13h 09min
retired on January 2014
Space flights

Kevin Anthony Ford (* 7. July 1960 in Portland , Indiana ) is a retired US Air Force colonel and former astronaut of NASA . Ford was the pilot of the space shuttle mission STS-128 , which launched for the International Space Station on August 29, 2009 , and the commander of ISS Expedition 34 .

Life

Ford was born in Portland, Indiana to Clayton and Barbara Ford and grew up in Montpelier , Indiana. In 1978 he graduated from Blackford High School in Hartford, Indiana. In 1982 he graduated from the University of Notre Dame , Indiana, with a bachelor's degree in aerospace engineering . In 1989, he received a Masters in International Relations from the University of Troy , Alabama, followed by a Masters in Aerospace Engineering from the University of Florida in 1994 . In 1997 Ford received his Ph.D. in aerospace engineering from the Air Force Institute of Technology , Ohio.

Ford successfully participated in the armed forces training program , the Reserve Officer Training Corps , while studying in Notre Dame , and joined the US Air Force. At Air University , the university of the US Air Force in Alabama, Ford successfully completed several courses, including the Squadron Officer School, the Air Command and Staff College, and the Air War College.

Ford is married and has two children.

Military career

Ford was recruited through the Reserve Officer Training Corps program in 1982 and completed his jet pilot training in an F-15 at Columbus , Mississippi Air Force Base in 1984. He then served in a combat squadron at Bitburg Air Force Base from 1984 to 1987 and in an interception squadron stationed at the Keflavik naval airport in Iceland, where it was involved in intercepting and escorting 18 Soviet fighter jets over the North Atlantic. After completing the test pilot school at Edwards , California Air Force Base (1990), Ford was a test pilot in an F-16 at Eglin Air Force Base , Florida until 1994 .

From 1994 to 1997 Ford received his PhD from the Air Force Institute of Technology at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio. He was then assigned to the Air Force School for Test Pilots and served as an instructor for the F-15 and F-16 and gliders. Ford has completed 4,900 hours of flight time, is a pilot for airplanes, helicopters and gliders and is a flight instructor for airplanes and gliders. In 2008, Ford retired as a colonel from the Air Force.

NASA career

In July 2000, Ford was selected as an astronaut candidate by NASA and began the two-year training course in August 2000. After that, he performed various tasks at NASA, such as capsule communicator and head of operations at the Yuri Gagarin cosmonaut training center in Star City in Russia from January 2004 to January 2005.

On July 15, 2008, Ford was selected to pilot the STS-128 mission. Ford took off on this mission on August 29, 2009 with the space shuttle Discovery to the International Space Station (ISS) . The landing took place on September 12, 2009.

In February 2010 it was announced that Ford would fly into space again as an ISS long-term astronaut. On July 8, 2010 NASA nominated him as ISS flight engineer together with the two Russians Oleg Novizki and Yevgeny Tarelkin as reserve crew for Soyuz TMA- 04M and as deployment crew for Soyuz TMA-06M , which took off for the ISS on October 23, 2012 . There, Ford was initially the flight engineer of the 33rd ISS crew and became commander of the 34th ISS crew on November 18 .

Ford left NASA in January 2014.

Summary

No mission function Flight date Flight duration
1 STS-128 pilot 2009 13d 20h 54m
2 Soyuz TMA-06M Flight engineer / ISS commander 2012/2013 143d 16h 15m

Awards and honors

During his tenure, Ford was honored with the Meritorious Service Medal , Air Force Commendation Medal, Aerial Achievement Medal, and Armed Forces Expeditionary Medal. In 1998 he received the Air Force Test Pilot School David B. Barnes Outstanding Flight Instructor Award for Outstanding Flight Instructor.

Web links

Commons : Kevin Ford  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Günther Glatzel: ISS expedition 33 ends. raumfahrer.net, November 18, 2012, accessed on November 19, 2012 .
personal data
SURNAME Ford, Kevin Anthony
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American colonel and astronaut
DATE OF BIRTH July 7, 1960
PLACE OF BIRTH Portland, Indiana