William F. Readdy

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William Readdy
William Readdy
Country: United States
Organization: NASA
selected on June 5, 1987
( 12th NASA Group )
Calls: 3 space flights
Start of the
first space flight: 		January 22, 1992
Landing of the
last space flight: 		September 26, 1996
Time in space: 28d 0h 44min
retired on October 14, 2005
Space flights

William Francis "Bill" Readdy (born January 24, 1952 in Quonset Point , Rhode Island , USA ) is a former American astronaut .

Readdy received a bachelor's degree in aerospace engineering from the United States Naval Academy in 1974 .

Readdy was trained as a naval aviator in the United States Navy . From 1976 to 1980 he was stationed on the aircraft carrier USS Forrestal in the Mediterranean and North Atlantic. In 1980 he was trained as a test pilot and was employed as a test pilot and trainer for test pilots until 1984. He was then transferred to the USS Coral Sea for missions in the Mediterranean and the Caribbean.

Astronaut activity

In 1986 he moved to NASA as a research pilot at Ellington Field , where he worked as a program manager for the Shuttle Carrier Aircraft . In June 1987 he was selected by NASA as an astronaut aspirant. At NASA, he was Training Officer, Safety Officer, Head of Operations Development, Director of Operations in Svjosdny Gorodok near Moscow, member of the Stafford Task Force and the first manager of the Space Shuttle Program Development, responsible for improvements to the Space Shuttle. He also became Associate Administrator at NASA Headquarters for the Office of Space Flight, which coordinates for the various NASA centers and the current space programs.

STS-42

On January 22, 1992, Readdy took off into space for the first time as a Discovery mission specialist . The microgravity laboratory IML-1 was located in the space shuttle's payload bay . The Spacelab module contained experiments to explore the complex effects of weightlessness on living organisms and other materials. In order to be able to carry out experiments around the clock, the crew worked in shifts. Readdy formed the red team together with Hilmers and the German Ulf Merbold , while Thagard , Grabe , Oswald and Bondar formed the blue team.

STS-51

On September 12, 1993 Readdy took off as a pilot of Discovery as part of the STS-51 mission . He suspended the Advanced Communications Technology Satellite (ACTS) and the Shuttle Pallet Satellite ( ORFEUS-SPAS ). The latter American and German scientific experiments had including an ultraviolet - spectrometer on board. In a seven-hour spacewalk proven Carl Walz and James Newman tools and methods to repair the Hubble Space Telescope . After ORFEUS-SPAS had flown freely for six days and had moved approx. 65 km away from the Discovery, it was finally caught again with the help of the shuttle robot arm. After circumnavigating the earth 158 times, the Discovery was the first shuttle to land at the Kennedy Space Center that night .

STS-79

Readdy started as shuttle commander on September 16, 1996 to the Mir space station from the Kennedy Space Center, where the mission later ended again. The space shuttle Atlantis was docked to the space station for four days. On this mission, the Mir crew member Shannon Lucid was replaced by John Blaha , who flew back with STS-81 . After the exchange of supplies and experiments, the space shuttle returned to Earth after ten days on September 26th.

According to NASA

In October 2005 Readdy left NASA and founded an aerospace consultancy with Discovery Partners International.

Private

William Readdy is married with three children.

See also

Web links

Commons : William F. Readdy  - Collection of Images, Videos, and Audio Files
personal data
SURNAME Readdy, William F.
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Readdy, William Francis; Readdy, Bill (nickname)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American astronaut
DATE OF BIRTH January 24, 1952
PLACE OF BIRTH Quonset Point , Rhode Island, USA