Michael Eladio López-Alegría

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Michael López-Alegría
Michael López-Alegría
Country: United States
Organization: NASA
selected on March 31, 1992
( 14th NASA Group )
Calls: 4 space flights
Start of the
first space flight: 		October 20, 1995
Landing of the
last space flight: 		April 21, 2007
Time in space: 257d 22h 46min
EVA inserts: 10
EVA total duration: 67h 40min
retired on March 2012
Space flights

Miguel Eladio López-Alegría (born May 30, 1958 in Madrid , Spain ), known in the English-speaking world as Michael López-Alegria, is a former American astronaut . Since 2007 he has held the respective US records for the largest total EVA duration (67h 40min) and for the longest space flight (215d 8h). Michael López-Alegría is married for the second time and has one child.

childhood

López-Alegría was born to a Spanish officer and an American with Italian roots. He first grew up with his Spanish father in Madrid. Later they both moved to live with López-Alegría's mother in Mission Viejo, California .

In the Navy

After high school, López-Alegría in 1976 joined the US Navy and graduated from the US Naval Academy in Annapolis ( Maryland ). This gave him a bachelor's degree in systems engineering in 1980 .

After López-Alegría had received his flight license as a naval pilot in September 1981, he in turn trained flight students for a year and a half. Then he was assigned to an electronic reconnaissance squadron in Spain. From Rota (one of the shuttle's emergency landing sites) he undertook reconnaissance flights with EP-3E “Orion” machines over the Mediterranean, the Atlantic and the Baltic Sea .

Then López-Alegría took part in a training program for test pilots, in which the Naval Postgraduate School (NPS) in Monterey, California and the United States Naval Test Pilot School (USNTPS) in Maryland participated. From 1986 he initially only studied at the NPS. He later also attended a test pilot seminar at the USNTPS, located in Maryland on Naval Air Station Patuxent River. After four semesters on the west coast of the USA, he finally graduated in aeronautical engineering. He then went to the US Navy's flight test center in Patuxent River, where he worked as a test pilot until he switched to NASA.

Astronaut activity

López-Alegría wanted to become an astronaut before he started school, stimulated by the reading that his mother, who worked at NASA, brought home. As with most children, this career desire did not last long and changed continuously. He remembered his childhood dream many years later when he read in a Navy magazine about pilots who became astronauts. He then applied to NASA. For the group 13 he made it to the final round as he in September 1989 to the Johnson Space Center of Houston ( Texas was invited) to the test.

López-Alegría was accepted with the 14th group in the astronaut corps of NASA. The basic courses began in the autumn of 1992 and ended a year later. The astronaut office then appointed him to be the point of contact for technical issues relating to the spacecraft before he worked in the support teams at the Kennedy Space Center .

Since the end of 1994 López-Alegría, who is called "Mike LA" by his astronaut colleagues, trained for his first space flight, which took place a year later with STS-73 . The Columbia conducted a research mission with scientific experiments in microgravity by. López-Alegría assisted the two payload specialists on board for two weeks. The seven members of the crew were divided into two groups in order to optimize the utilization of the equipment: López-Alegría led the blue team.

In October 1996, López-Alegría was sent to Moscow to work at the Yuri Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center as Director of Operations. He thus served as a link between NASA and Russia . He returned to the United States in the summer of 1997.

Together with three colleagues was López-Alegría in June 1997 for STS-92 was set up to four spacewalks to perform (EVAs). The mission was to take place in January 1999 and serve to set up the International Space Station (ISS). However, there were delays in the ISS program and so STS-92 could only be carried out in October 2000. The cargo of the 100th space shuttle mission was formed by the lattice structure Z1 and the third coupling adapter PMA ( Pressurized Mating Adapter 3). López-Alegría undertook two EVAs with his colleague Wisoff : on the first exit they mounted the PMA-3 and on the second they made final adjustments to the Z1 grid and then tested the rescue system for astronauts called SAFER .

Before López-Alegría started preparing for his next flight in August 2001, he headed the ISS department of the astronauts office. STS-113 was the last shuttle mission in 2002 and also the last successful flight before the Columbia space shuttle crashed two months later. On the one hand, STS-113 ensured a change of crew on the space station ( Expedition 6 replaced Expedition 5 ) and delivered the lattice structure P1 for further expansion. Together with John Herrington , López-Alegría installed and activated the P1 segment on three EVAs.

In May 2006 López-Alegría was appointed commander of ISS Expedition 14 , which started on September 18, 2006 with Soyuz TMA-9 for the ISS. After six months on board, he returned to Earth on April 21, 2007.

According to NASA

López-Alegría left NASA in March 2012 and became president of the Commercial Spaceflight Federation .

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Alex Saltman: Astronaut Michael Lopez-Alegria Named President of the Commercial Spaceflight Federation. Commercial Spaceflight Federation, March 12, 2012, accessed March 16, 2012 .

See also

Web links

Commons : Michael López-Alegría  - Collection of images, videos and audio files
personal data
SURNAME López-Alegría, Michael Eladio
ALTERNATIVE NAMES López-Alegría, Michael E. (abbreviated form); Michael LA (nickname)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American astronaut
DATE OF BIRTH May 30, 1958
PLACE OF BIRTH Madrid , Spain