William McMichael Shepherd
| William Shepherd | |
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| Country: | United States |
| Organization: | NASA |
| selected on | May 23, 1984 (10th NASA Group) |
| Calls: | 4 space flights |
| Start of the first space flight: |
2nd December 1988 |
| Landing of the last space flight: |
March 21, 2001 |
| Time in space: | 159d 7h 49min |
| retired on | August 2002 |
| Space flights | |
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William McMichael "Bill" Shepherd (born July 26, 1949 in Oak Ridge , Tennessee , USA ) is a former American astronaut . He was the commander of the first crew of the ISS .
Shepherd graduated from the United States Naval Academy in 1971 and received a bachelor's degree in aerospace engineering. He then embarked on a military career with the Navy Seals . In 1978 he received a master's degree in mechanical engineering and a degree in marine engineering from MIT .
Astronaut activity
Shepherd was selected as an astronaut by NASA in 1984 with the 10th group. As early as 1986, NASA's training with the Navy Seals proved unexpectedly useful when it was used on the rescue missions of the exploded Challenger space shuttle.
With the space shuttle Atlantis , Shepherd started as a mission specialist on December 2nd, 1988 for the STS-27 mission . The main objective of this mission was the deployment of the military reconnaissance satellite Lacrosse 1 .
On October 6, 1990, he took off on the space shuttle Discovery for the STS-41 mission . During this mission, the heaviest payload to date, the Ulysses spacecraft , was launched. Ulysses is a joint project between NASA and ESA to research the sun .
Shepherd took off on the space shuttle Columbia on October 22, 1992 for the STS-52 mission . The most important goal of this mission was the launching of the Italian-American geodesy satellite LAGEOS 2 .
In 1993, Shepherd went to NASA headquarters as a technical advisor for the International Space Station (ISS) for just under three years . On October 31, 2000 he took off on board the Soyuz TM-31 flight together with the Russian cosmonauts Gidsenko and Krikaljow for the ISS. There he was the commander of the first long-term crew , whose main task was to activate the most important systems of the space station. In addition, new equipment was installed, errors eliminated and the first scientific work carried out. After more than 140 days on the ISS, he finally returned to Earth on March 21, 2001 with the space shuttle Discovery ( STS-102 ).
According to NASA
Shepherd left the US space agency in the summer of 2002 and was awarded the Congressional Space Medal of Honor the following year. He is married to Beth Stringham, a Texan who worked as a physiotherapist for NASA .
See also
- List of spacemen
- List of space shuttle missions
- List of Soyuz missions
- List of ISS expeditions
- List of manned missions to the International Space Station
Web links
- Short biography of William McMichael Shepherd at spacefacts.de
- NASA biography of William McMichael Shepherd (English; PDF)
- Biography of William McMichael Shepherd in the Encyclopedia Astronautica (English)
- Francis French: Beyond Where The Sky Meets The Dawn , report on Bill Shepherd's stay on the ISS
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Shepherd, William McMichael |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Shepherd, Bill (nickname) |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | American astronaut |
| DATE OF BIRTH | July 26, 1949 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Oak Ridge , Tennessee |