Mike Mullane
Richard Mullane | |
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Country: | United States |
Organization: | NASA |
selected on | January 16, 1978 ( 8th NASA Group ) |
Calls: | 3 space flights |
Start of the first space flight: |
August 30, 1984 |
Landing of the last space flight: |
March 4th 1990 |
Time in space: | 14d 20h 20min |
retired on | August 1, 1990 |
Space flights | |
Richard Michael "Mike" Mullane (born September 10, 1945 in Wichita Falls , Texas , USA ) is a retired American astronaut . Mullane received a bachelor's degree in military engineering from Westpoint Military Academy in 1967 and a master's degree in aeronautical engineering from the Air Force Institute of Technology in 1975 .
From January to November 1969, Mullane completed 150 combat missions as a Phantom 4C weapons systems officer in Vietnam. After a four-year stationing in the United Kingdom, he was employed after appropriate training as an aircraft test weapon system officer at Eglin Air Force Base in Florida.
Astronaut activity
In January 1978, Mullane was selected as an astronaut candidate by NASA.
STS-41-D
On his first space flight, Mullane was a mission specialist on the maiden flight of the space shuttle Discovery on August 30, 1984. Except for the commander, he and the other four crew members were all space newbies. During the six-day mission, the three satellites SBS-D, SYNCOM IV-2 (also known as LEASAT 2) and Telstar 3-C were deployed . In addition, the OAST-1 solar cell experiment and the CFES-III experiment to study crystal growth were carried out. In addition, recordings were made with an IMAX camera that was carried along . During the mission, dangerous ice sheets had to be removed from the orbiter using the shuttle's robot arm.
STS-62-A
STS-62-A was scheduled to launch in July 1986 as the first shuttle mission from Space Launch Complex 6 at Vandenberg Air Force Base. Robert Crippen would have commanded the Discovery on the first shuttle mission in a polar orbit for the US Department of Defense. The crew would have consisted of Guy Gardner, Dale Gardner, Richard Mullane, Jerry Ross, as well as the military rastronaut John Watterson (MSE) and the politician Edward Aldridge, alongside Crippen. The flight was canceled after the US Department of Defense withdrew from the shuttle program following the Challenger disaster. Even later, no more shuttles took off from Vandenberg Air Force Base.
STS-27
On December 2, 1988, Mullane took off on the space shuttle Atlantis for the STS-27 mission . The main objective of this mission was the deployment of the military reconnaissance satellite Lacrosse 1 .
STS-36
Mullane took off into space for the third time on February 28, 1990 with the space shuttle Atlantis . A secret US Air Force satellite was dropped into low orbit from where this digital reconnaissance satellite was supposed to monitor most of the earth's surface.
According to NASA
After retiring from NASA and the Air Force in September 1990, Mullane went freelance as a professional speaker and writer. His first novel "Red Sky: A Novel of Love, Space, & War" was published in June 1993.
bibliography
- Riding Rockets: The Outrageous Tales of a Space Shuttle Astronaut , Publisher: Charles Scribner's Sons ISBN 0-7432-7682-5
- Red Sky: A Novel of Love, Space, & War , Publisher: Northwest Publishing ISBN 1-56901-111-7
- Do Your Ears Pop in Space and 500 Other Surprising Questions about Space Travel , Publisher: John Wiley & Sons ISBN 0-471-15404-0
- Liftoff !: An Astronaut's Dream , Publisher: Silver Burdett Press ISBN 0-382-24664-0
Private
Richard Mullane is married with three children.
See also
Web links and receipts
- Website by Mike Mullane (English)
- Short biography of Mike Mullane at spacefacts.de
- NASA biography of Mike Mullane (PDF)
- Biography of Mike Mullane in the Encyclopedia Astronautica (English)
personal data | |
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SURNAME | Mullane, Mike |
ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Mullane, Richard Michael |
BRIEF DESCRIPTION | American astronaut |
DATE OF BIRTH | September 10, 1945 |
PLACE OF BIRTH | Wichita Falls , Texas |