Steven Ray Nagel

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Steven Ray Nagel
Steven Ray Nagel
Country: United States
Organization: NASA
selected on January 16, 1978
( 8th NASA Group )
Calls: 4 space flights
Start of the
first space flight: 		June 17, 1985
Landing of the
last space flight: 		May 6, 1993
Time in space: 30d 1h 34min
retired on March 1, 1995
Space flights

Steven R. Nagel (* 27. October 1946 in Canton , Illinois ; † 21st August 2014 in Columbia , Missouri ) was an American Colonel of the US Air Force and NASA - Astronaut .

education

Nagel graduated from Canton Senior High School in 1964. He then studied aerospace engineering at the University of Illinois and graduated in 1969 with a bachelor's degree . He received his Masters in Mechanical Engineering from California State University in 1978 .

US Air Force

He joined the US Air Force in 1969 as part of the University of Illinois Air Force Reserve Officer Training Corps (AFROTC) program and was trained as a pilot in Texas and Arizona , then as an F-100 pilot stationed in Louisiana . From July 1971 he trained pilots of the Laos Air Force on the T-28 in Thailand . In October 1972 he returned to the USA and became a jet instructor.

In 1975 he began his test pilot training at Edwards Air Force Base , and then remained stationed there until 1978, testing mainly the F-4 and A-7D aircraft .

He achieved over 12,600 flight hours, of which over 9,640 were in jets.

NASA

In 1978 he was elected to NASA's 8th astronaut group and trained as a pilot for a year.

He accompanied the landing of STS-1 in a T-38 and was one of the liaison speakers ( Capcom ) for STS-2 and STS-3 .

Nagel was involved in various functions as an astronaut in the following missions:

No. mission function Period Flight duration
1 STS-51-G Mission specialist June 17 - June 24, 1985 7d 1h 38min
2 STS-61-A pilot October 30 - November 6, 1985 7d 00h 44min
3 STS-37 commander April 5 - April 11, 1991 5d 23h 32min
4th STS-55 commander April 26 - May 6, 1993 9d 23h 39min

STS-51-G

Despite his training as a shuttle pilot, Nagel had his first space mission in June 1985 as a mission specialist on the STS-51-G mission with the space shuttle Discovery . The three communications satellites Telstar-3D from AT&T, MORELOS-A for Mexico and ARABSAT -A for an Arab organization were brought into orbit. Among the experiments carried out, the first flight of the Automated Directional Solidification Furnace (ADSF), a kiln for physical examinations in weightlessness, should be mentioned in particular .

On June 20, a SPARTAN -101 satellite was launched and brought back on board after more than 45 hours. During the free flight of SPARTAN, a galaxy cluster and the center of our galaxy were explored.

STS-61-A

Nagel received his first pilot mission with the Challenger space shuttle from October 30 to November 6, 1985.

During this space flight, the European Spacelab was carried in the hold. The three European payload specialists carried out mission D1 (Germany 1) of ESA. For the first time, part of a shuttle mission was monitored from outside the USA: while the flight of the space shuttle was being controlled from the NASA control center in Houston, the DFVLR with its center in Oberpfaffenhofen , Bavaria, was responsible for the scientific experiments in the space laboratory . A total of 75 different experiments were carried out.

At the beginning of the flight, a small communications satellite housed in the Challenger's hold was deployed. GLOMR (Global Low Orbiting Message Relay) was built on behalf of DARPA and was a demonstration model for remote interrogation of military sensors. The satellite, which was 60 centimeters in diameter and weighed 52 kilograms, entered the denser layers of the earth's atmosphere on December 26, 1986 after 14 months and burned up.

On board were two German astronauts, Reinhard Furrer and Ernst Messerschmid , who each made their maiden flight, but no further space flights.

STS-37

This April 1991 mission was the first for which Nagel was in command of a mission and the space shuttle Atlantis was designated for this mission. The mission's main payload was the CGRO gamma-ray observatory and was launched on the third day of flight. It is the second of NASA's four major observatories.

STS-55

Nagel made his last space flight in 1993 with the space shuttle Columbia . STS-55 is better known in German-speaking countries as the second German Spacelabmission D-2, which was carried out eight years after the first flight (D1 with STS-61-A). Also on board were two German astronauts, Ulrich Walter and Hans Schlegel .

The astronaut and physician Dr. Bernard Harris was given an intravenous access to an astronaut (Hans Schlegel) for the first time in space, through which a saline solution was injected. This was part of a study to investigate the replacement of fluid lost due to weightless adaptation. Other crew members also took part.

After the space flights

Nagel retired from the US Air Force and the Astronaut Office in 1995. He then took care of the training of pilots and the safety of the space missions at the Johnson Space Center as Deputy Director for Operations Development . In September 1996, Nagel moved to the aviation operations department, flew as a research pilot and served as head of flight safety and deputy head of department. In 2011 he was appointed to the University of Missouri as a lecturer.

Private

Steve Nagel died on August 21, 2014 as a result of cancer. He was married to astronaut Linda Godwin and had two daughters with her. Nagel and Godwin completed the STS-37 mission together, at which point they were not yet married. His hobbies were sport flying and astronomy .

See also

Web links

Commons : Steven R. Nagel  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ NASA biography of Steven Ray Nagel , accessed on August 23, 2014 (PDF).
  2. ↑ Associated Press : Steven R. Nagel, Astronaut Who Flew on 4 Space Shuttles, Dies at 67. In: The New York Times, August 25, 2014 (accessed August 30, 2014).
  3. ↑ Former NASA astronaut Steven Nagel dies . Collectspace, August 22, 2014.
personal data
SURNAME Nagel, Steven Ray
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American astronaut
DATE OF BIRTH October 27, 1946
PLACE OF BIRTH Canton , Illinois
DATE OF DEATH August 21, 2014
Place of death Columbia , Missouri