Michael A. Baker

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Michael Baker
Michael Baker
Country: United States
Organization: NASA
selected on June 4, 1985
(13th NASA Group)
Calls: 4 space flights
Start of the
first space flight: 		2nd August 1991
Landing of the
last space flight: 		January 22, 1997
Time in space: 40d 4h 59min
retired on January 7, 2017
Space flights

Michael A. Baker (* 27. October 1953 in Memphis , Tennessee , USA ) is a former American astronaut of NASA . Baker is married with three children.

Baker finished in 1971 by the High School in Lemoore ( California ) and enrolled at the University of Texas to the degree program aerospace engineering one, which he in 1975 with a Bachelor graduated.

After graduating Baker joined the US Air Force and completed his pilot training at the Naval Air Station Chase Field in Beeville ( Texas ) in 1977 from. He was assigned to Attack Squadron 56 on the USS Midway , which was stationed in Yokosuka, Japan . There he flew the A-7E Corsair II .

After Baker was assigned to Carrier Air Wing 30 as a signal guest in 1980 , he attended the United States Naval Test Pilot School at the Patuxent River Naval Base in Maryland the following year and, after graduating, was in the carrier suitability department of the Strike Aircraft Test Directorate on Patuxent River active. There, Baker carried out structural tests, tests on aircraft carrier catapults and catch hook tests for the A-7 on various aircraft carriers . In 1983 he returned to the Naval Test Pilot School as an instructor before being transferred to the UK . As part of an exchange program, he trained the graduates of the Empire Test Pilots School.

Baker left NASA on January 7, 2017.

NASA activity

Baker was selected by NASA as a pilot candidate for the space shuttle in June 1985 and, after completing his one-year training, was appointed an astronaut in July 1986. After the space shuttle Challenger crashed in January 1986, he was part of a group until December 1987 that revised and improved the landing and braking system of the US space shuttle. Among other things , changes were made to the control of the nose landing gear , the brakes, tires and the braking parachute in order to increase safety.

Baker then served three years as a connection spokesman in the control center in Houston ( Texas ). After that he was a member of the shuttle support teams. From December 1992 he worked in management in the Flight Crew Operations Directorate. Subsequently he was NASA liaison officer at the Yuri Gagarin cosmonaut training center in Star City near Moscow in Russia, responsible for coordinating and implementing the mission activities of the Shuttle Mir program .

Between October 1997 and August 2001, Baker was the director of the US space program in Russia for the Johnson Space Center . On behalf of NASA, he took care of the implementation of American ideas in Moscow in terms of training, operations, logistics, personnel and technical issues in the area of ​​the International Space Station (ISS).

Baker later was program manager for the crew of the ISS and in this role coordinates the astronaut training in cooperation with international partners.

STS-43

STS-43 was Baker's first space flight. He was a pilot of the Atlantis , which took off on August 2, 1991 from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida and landed there again on August 11. Among other things, the Tracking and Data Relay Satellite (TDRS-E) was suspended during the flight .

STS-52

Baker also took part in STS-52 as a pilot of the Columbia space shuttle from October 22 to November 1, 1992. Takeoff and landing were at the Kennedy Space Center. The Italian Laser Geodynamic Satellite (LAGEOS) was deployed, which is able to measure movements of the earth's crust.

STS-68

STS-68 was Baker's first shuttle flight as commander. The Endeavor took off from Kennedy Space Center on September 30, 1994 and landed at Edwards Air Force Base in California on October 11 . It was the Space Radar Laboratory's second flight. The two main instruments on board were the SIR-C / X-SAR (Shuttle Imaging Radar-C / X-Band Synthetic Aperture Radar) and MAPS (Measurement of Air Pollution from Satellites).

STS-81

Baker's second command was on STS-81. The Atlantis took off from the Kennedy Space Center on January 12, 1997 and landed there again on January 22. It was the fifth of a number of joint Shuttle-MIR missions and the second to involve a crew exchange. In total, more than three tons of equipment (food, water, technical equipment) were moved between the shuttle and MIR.

Summary

No mission function Flight date Flight duration
1 STS-43 pilot August 2 - August 11, 1991 8d 21h 21min
2 STS-52 pilot October 22nd - November 1st, 1992 9d 20h 56min
3 STS-68 commander September 30 - October 11, 1994 11d 5h 46min
4th STS-81 commander January 12 - January 22, 1997 10d 4h 56min

Awards

See also

Web links

Commons : Michael Allen Baker  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ NASA: Veteran Astronauts Retire from NASA. January 9, 2017, accessed January 10, 2017 .
personal data
SURNAME Baker, Michael A.
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Baker, Michael Allen (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American astronaut
DATE OF BIRTH October 27, 1953
PLACE OF BIRTH Memphis , USA