Kevin R. Kregel

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Kevin R. Kregel
Kevin R. Kregel
Country: United States
Organization: NASA
selected on March 31, 1992
( 14th NASA Group )
Calls: 4 space flights
Start of the
first space flight: 		July 13, 1995
Landing of the
last space flight: 		February 22, 2000
Time in space: 52d 18h ​​21min
retired on June 27, 2002
Space flights

Kevin Richard Kregel (born September 16, 1956 in New York City , New York ) is a retired American astronaut .

education

Kregel received a bachelor's degree in aerospace engineering from the United States Air Force Academy in 1978 and a master's degree in public administration from Troy State University in 1988 .

Kregel made his pilot's license with the US Air Force in 1979. From 1980 to 1983 he was stationed as an F-111 pilot at Lakenheath Airfield in England. As an exchange officer, he flew the A-6E at the Whidbey Island Navy base in Seattle and completed 66 aircraft carrier landings on the USS Kitty Hawk in the Western Pacific. After training to be a test pilot, he tried out various aircraft and weapon systems at Eglin Air Force Base in Florida .

Astronaut activity

In April 1990 he was hired by NASA as an aerospace engineer and pilot trainer. At Ellington Field Airport , he worked as a pilot instructor with the Shuttle Training Aircraft and tested improvements to NASA's T-38 jet .

In March 1992, Kregel was selected by NASA as an astronaut candidate and trained as a space shuttle pilot. He was a member of the support teams at the Kennedy Space Center and worked as a liaison spokesman ( Capcom ). He was a member of the Space Launch Initiative Project at the Engineering Directorate at the Johnson Space Center .

STS-70

On July 13, 1995, Kregel started as a pilot of the space shuttle Discovery on its first mission into space . The main task was to deploy the TDRS-G relay satellite .

STS-78

During his second mission on June 20, 1996, Kregel flew on the Columbia space shuttle to the longest flight of a space shuttle to date (16d 21h 48min). The task was weightlessness experiments in the Life and Microgravity Spacelab (LMS), which were required as a basis for future experiments on the International Space Station (ISS).

STS-87

On November 19, 1997, Kregel started as commandant of Columbia for the Spacelab mission "United States Microgravity Payload 4". The two mission specialists Winston Scott and Takao Doi carried out two space exits (EVAs) . During the first EVA, they caught the SPARTAN research satellite , which had been launched at the beginning of the flight and which had fallen into an uncontrolled tumble. In addition, the so-called AERCam was tested for the first time, an approximately 40 centimeter ball that is equipped with a position control and camera system and can explore structures that are difficult to access. Scott let it float out of the payload bay and Steven Lindsey controlled AERCam by remote control from the cockpit.

STS-99

On February 11, 2000, Kregel flew to the so-called Shuttle Radar Topography Mission as commander of the Space Shuttle Endeavor . He used radar to map 80 percent of the earth's land mass. Two radar systems (one in the shuttle's payload bay, the other mounted on a 60-meter-long mast) scanned the surface of the earth. The result was a digital three-dimensional model of the earth with an accuracy never seen before. In order to enable work around the clock, the six-person crew was divided into two teams that worked in 12-hour operation. Kregel formed the red team with the mission specialists Janet L. Kavandi and Gerhard Thiele .

According to NASA

He is currently a pilot with Southwest Airlines .

Private

Kevin Kregel is married and has four children.

See also

Web links

Commons : Kevin R. Kregel  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files
personal data
SURNAME Kregel, Kevin R.
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Kregel, Kevin Richard
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American astronaut
DATE OF BIRTH September 16, 1956
PLACE OF BIRTH New York City , New York