William Oefelein

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William Oefelein
William Oefelein
Country: United States
Organization: NASA
selected on June 4, 1998
( 17th NASA Group )
Calls: 1 space flight
Begin: December 10, 2006
Landing: December 22, 2006
Time in space: 12d 20h 45m
retired on June 2007
Space flights

William Anthony "Bill" Oefelein (born March 29, 1965 in Fort Belvoir , Virginia , USA ) is a former American astronaut .

Live and act

Born in the small town of Fort Belvoir in Virginia, founded by the US Army during the First World War, Oefelein grew up in the largest city in Alaska , Anchorage . Oefelein graduated from West Anchorage High School in 1983 and then studied electrical engineering. He started at his home University of Alaska and then, with the support of a scholarship, moved to Oregon State University in Corvallis . In 1988 he was awarded a bachelor's degree from the College of Engineering and then joined the US Navy .

After completing his basic training at the Aviation Officer Candidate School in Pensacola ( Florida ), he was trained as a marine pilot in Texas (he had already obtained a civilian pilot's license as a teenager in Alaska). In the fall of 1990 he began an advanced training course on the F / A-18 "Hornet" at Marine Corps Air Station El Toro, California . He was then assigned to the 146th Combat Squadron (Navy designation VFA-146), which is stationed in Lemoore (California). The "Blue Diamonds", as the squadron calls itself, had shortly before received the new F / A-18C aircraft as the first unit in the Navy.

The VFA-146 ran out in February 1993 with the aircraft carrier "USS Nimitz" in the direction of the Persian Gulf . Until July, the association - Carrier Air Wing 9 - supported " Operation Southern Watch " and monitored the no-fly zone in southern Iraq. Back in the United States, Oefelein attended the United States Navy Fighter Weapons School in Miramar (California) and was trained as a tactical officer.

In January 1995 Oefelein came to Maryland and received further training to become a test pilot at the Naval Air Station Patuxent River. After the one-year seminar at the United States Naval Test Pilot School (USNTPS), he worked as a test pilot for the F / A-18 with the Strike Aircraft Test Squadron, which is also based on the Patuxent River base. After two years, he returned to the USNTPS as an instructor in February 1997. For twelve months he instructed the future test pilots until he switched to Carrier Air Wing 8 at Naval Air Station Oceana in Virginia as operations manager .

Shortly before joining NASA , Oefelein received a Masters in aeronautical engineering from the Space Institute at the University of Tennessee in Tullahoma in 1998 .

Astronaut activity

Oefelein was presented as one of eight pilots with the 17th NASA astronaut group in June 1998. 101 finalists emerged from a total of 2,618 applicants who met the formal selection criteria. In autumn 1997 they were invited to the Johnson Space Center (JSC) in Houston ( Texas ) for tests, discussions and medical examinations.

The two-year basic training ended in autumn 2000. Then "Billy-O", as Oefelein was called by his colleagues at JSC, worked as CapCom .

In February 2002 Oefelein was selected as a pilot for his first space flight: STS-116 , a mission to the International Space Station , was originally supposed to be carried out the following year. Caused by the Columbia disaster on February 1, 2003, all flights were initially suspended and STS-116 therefore did not take place until December 2006.

Oefelein left NASA on June 1, 2007 and returned to the Navy. Although NASA has not issued a statement on his resignation, it is believed that he was fired because of his relationship with fellow astronaut Lisa Nowak and did not leave by himself. He was transferred to the Network Warfare Command in Virginia, the intelligence service of the US Navy.

Private

William Oefelein has two children with his ex-wife Michaella Davis.

See also

Web links

Commons : William Oefelein  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files
personal data
SURNAME Oefelein, William
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Oefelein, William Anthony; Oefelein, Bill
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American astronaut
DATE OF BIRTH March 29, 1965
PLACE OF BIRTH Fort Belvoir , Virginia