Stephen Kern Robinson

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Stephen Robinson
Stephen Robinson
Country: United States
Organization: NASA
selected on December 8, 1994
(15th NASA Group)
Calls: 4 space flights
Start of the
first space flight: 		August 7, 1997
Landing of the
last space flight: 		February 22, 2010
Time in space: 48d 09h 50min
EVA inserts: 3
EVA total duration: 20h 5min
retired on June 30, 2012
Space flights

Stephen Kern "Steve" Robinson (born October 26, 1955 in Sacramento , California , USA ) is a former American astronaut .

Robinson comes from California, where he was born in Sacramento , but grew up in the village of Moraga . His parents are both native Canadians .

education

After Robinson graduated from Donald L. Rheem Elementary School in Moraga, he attended the public Campolindo High School ( by the way, the Olympic champion Matt Biondi was also a Campolindo student). After graduating from high school in 1973, he began studying at the University of California at Davis . He also worked from 1975 as a technician in the wind tunnels of the Ames Research Center as part of an exchange program , where the final profile of the space shuttle was just being determined. He completed his mechanical engineering and aerospace engineering studies at the College of Engineering in 1978 with a bachelor's degree .

Employment

Robinson managed to get a permanent job at Ames as a research scientist, where he studied the behavior of liquids and gases. At the same time, he continued his studies as a mechanical engineer at Stanford University : in 1985 he obtained a master’s degree and five years later he received his doctorate.

Robinson then moved from the Ames Research Center to the Langley Research Center in Virginia , where he was appointed head of the Experimental Flow Physics department. In June 1993, he was "loaned" to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) for a little over a year . He was a member of the staff at the Man Vehicle Laboratory (MVL), where human performance as a pilot of aircraft and spacecraft has been researched since 1962. Robinson was the third astronaut to work at the MVL after Ken Cameron and Byron Lichtenberg. During this time he was directly involved in the preparations for a series of experiments that flew on the Spacelab flight STS-58 in October 1993. The Vestibular Experiments in Spacelab consisted of six individual projects that investigated human adaptation to weightlessness. In addition, Dr. Robinson at MIT's Volpe National Transportation Systems Center. The Volpe Center reports to the US Department of Transportation and conducts research in the field of traffic safety. Robinson returned to Langley in September 1994.

Astronaut activity

The desire to become a spaceman dates back to Robinson's youth. In 1970, at the age of 15, he undertook his first glider flights with a self-made glider, the components of which came from the junkyard. Since then, the dream of flying hadn't let go of him. And although his trips from the sand dunes of his Californian homeland caused him many injuries, he bought his first airplane in 1974. His other great passion is music. Already in his high school days he belonged to a band (at that time he also worked as a presenter for a local radio station) and is now the lead guitarist of the astronaut rock band “Max Q” , which is why his colleagues like to call him “Stevie Ray” . His instrument repertoire includes all kinds of guitar-like musical devices - from the banjo to the mandolin to the bass guitar.

Robinson was selected as one of nine mission specialists with the 15th astronaut group in December 1994. From a total of 2,962 applicants who met the formal selection criteria, 121 finalists emerged. They were invited to the Johnson Space Center (JSC) in Houston , Texas in the summer of 1994 for tests, job interviews and medical examinations. Since 1982, Robinson had applied repeatedly to the JSC as an astronaut. His career aspirations came within reach for the first time when he reached the final round in January 1992 with the 14th group.

After a year of basic training that began in March 1995, Robinson was assigned to the computer division of the astronauts bureau. He tested new software for the US space shuttle in the Shuttle Avionics Integration Laboratory (SAIL) before it was used. He also worked as a liaison officer in the control center.

STS-85

Since autumn 1996 Robinson trained for his first space mission. STS-85 was carried out by Discovery in August 1997. For the second time (after STS-66 three years earlier) the German astronomy satellite CRISTA -SPAS was on board a US space shuttle. Suspended shortly after the start with the help of the gripper arm , the platform carried out measurements in the high atmosphere for a week. The device developed by the University of Wuppertal was then caught again and stowed in the payload bay.

STS-95

Two years later, Robinson embarked on his second space flight aboard STS-95 . Again it was the Discovery, this time with a Spacehab module as the main payload in the cargo bay. In it, the astronauts experimented on around 80 research projects, which were monitored by Robinson as the scientific director. He was also responsible for the robot arm. With him he suspended the astronomy platform SPARTAN. After a few days of observing the sun, he caught her again. The mission aroused particular interest because the crew was reinforced by space flight legend John Glenn .

In July 1999, Robinson was appointed to replace Dan Bursch. As a flight engineer, he belonged to the ISS expedition 4 , which set off for the International Space Station (ISS) with STS-108 in December 2001 and was picked up again by STS-111 after six months .

STS-114

Robinson on third exit from STS-114

Robinson then trained as a mission specialist for the shuttle flight STS-114 , which resumed operations on the US space shuttle after a two-year break in the summer of 2005. He not only supported the two pilots as a flight engineer, but also undertook three space exits (EVAs) together with the Japanese crew member Noguchi during the mission . One of these EVAs was not on the flight plan. The flight control had decided that a repair - the first to be carried out in orbit - the heat shield of the space shuttle was necessary and sent the two astronauts out to remove the filler strips protruding from the underside of the orbiter.

STS-130

On December 5, 2008, his participation in the STS-130 mission as a mission specialist was announced. The take-off took place on February 8, 2010, the landing took place on February 22.

According to NASA

Robinson left NASA on June 30, 2012 and became a professor at the University of California at Davis .

Web links

Commons : Stephen Robinson  - Collection of Images, Videos and Audio Files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ NASA Assigns Astronaut Crews for Future Space Shuttle Missions. NASA, December 5, 2008, accessed December 7, 2008 .
  2. ^ NASA astronaut Stephen K. Robinson Leaves Agency. In: NASA Press Release 12-227. NASA, July 3, 2012, accessed July 7, 2012 .
personal data
SURNAME Robinson, Stephen Kern
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Robinson, Steve
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American astronaut
DATE OF BIRTH October 26, 1955
PLACE OF BIRTH Sacramento , California