Astronaut Rick Searfoss, Who Flew On Three Space Shuttle Missions, Dies at 62

Astronaut Rick Searfoss, Who Flew On Three Space Shuttle Missions, Dies at 62

Astronaut Rick Searfoss, Who Flew On Three Space Shuttle Missions, Dies at 62







		Rick Searfoss, a former NASA astronaut who launched himself on three space shuttle missions before serving as a test pilot for a commercial rocket plane, died. He was 62 years old.



	Searfoss died on Sunday, September 29., at his home in Bear Valley Springs, California, according to Tehachapi News on Friday (October 5). The cause of death was not reported.

		The Association of Space Explorers, which featured Searfoss among its members, posted a memorial on its Facebook page on Monday night.

		An aspiring astronaut from his youth, Searfoss served as a flight instructor at the United States Air Force Test Pilot School at Edwards Air Force Base in California when he was elected to the 13th Candidate Group of The NASA. nicknamed "Hairballs".

		"I got a call that changed my life in January 1990 when Don Puddy, Operations Director of the flight crew at Johnson Space Center, contacted me and asked, with his soft bass voice and Texas accent," Rick How would you like to come? "Did I go down to JSC and work for myself in the Astronaut Office?" Searfoss wrote in "Takeoff: The Countdown for an Astronaut Leader for Leadership Based on Purpose," his motivational book of 2016. "My immediate response : 'I'll be there tomorrow if you want!' "





						


Official portrait of NASA astronaut Rick Searfoss. 

            						    Credit: NASA 


		His first mission was as a pilot the space shuttle columbia.

		Chief astronaut Dan Brandenstein called me into his office. "Rick, we have a mission for you, you will pilot the STS-58 at Columbia." With enthusiasm, but professionally, I answered: 'Thank you! I really appreciate the opportunity. ' Internally, it was' Woo-hoo! Oh, yes, I'm going into space, '"Searfoss recalled.

		Upon rising on October 18, 1993, Searfoss and his six crewmates spent two weeks in Earth orbit while studying Physiological effects of space flight.. During Spacelab's 14-day flight, which also included 48 laboratory rats, Searfoss helped test a joystick-based computer simulator to maintain competence in landing procedures on extended space shuttle missions.

		He also took control of Columbia as part of an experiment to measure the aerodynamic forces acting on a space shuttle in orbit and during the early stages of entry into the atmosphere.





						


Rick Searfoss, commander of the STS-90, is seen aboard the flight deck of the space shuttle Colum-bia in 1998. 

            						    Credit: NASA 


		The second space flight of Searfoss, STS-76, marked his second time as a pilot and the third space shuttle mission to dock with The Russian space station Mir. Launched on March 22, 1996, Searfoss and mission commander Kevin Chilton flew on the space shuttle Atlantis in an approach to the advanced in orbit after a two-day meeting.

		"In the final game, we were able to take Atlantis to a docking port with a displacement error of less than one inch at a closing rate of 0.1 plus or minus 0.02 feet per second." It's not a bad parking job for a vehicle of a hundred tons! "wrote Searfoss in" Takeoff. "

		STS-76 delivered Shannon Lucid (who also flew with Searfoss at STS-58) for a six-month stay at Mir and included the first US spacewalk. UU Around two spaceships docked.

		Before returning to Earth, Searfoss provided the necessary confirmation to avoid an emergency landing. Contrary to the telemetry received by Mission Control, it verified that the latch on the doors of the Atlantis payload bay was clear, which allowed the cargo hold and its critical heat radiators to reopen. (Bad weather at its main landing site in Florida resulted in a late delay in its re-entry the next day).

		"Unknowingly in space, the only emergency landing site available in our time window was Hickam Air Force Base, located next to Honolulu International Airport, Hawaii, once everything calmed down and we opened the doors from the cargo bay, we knew that the flight director had seriously considered sending us there. It almost made me wish I had reported from the spacehab module  that the latch was a no-go for the opening of the door. It would have been very interesting to first land a space shuttle in Hawaii, "wrote Searfoss.

		His third and last mission saw him assume the leadership of a crew.

		"It was the most incredible privilege I could imagine when receiving command of a US space mission," said Searfoss.

		The STS-90 mission "Neurolab" was launched on the space shuttle Columbia on April 17, 1998 to study the effects of microgravity on the nervous system. According to Searfoss, the 16-day flight was the only shuttle mission that produced a book of peer-reviewed scientific results over the course of the 30 years and 135 missions of the program. It also marked the 25th and last flight of the Modules of the European Space Agency Spacelab, which was launched for the first time in 1983.

		On May 3, 1998, Searfoss took Columbia to a landing at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. In total, he logged 39 days, 3 hours and 18 minutes in space in his three missions.





						


Rick Searfoss, XCOR Chief Test Pilot (on the right), with SpaceShipOne and XCOR test pilot Brian Binnie in the XCOR hangar in 2014. 

            						    Credit: XCOR Aerospace 


		Richard Alan "Rick" Searfoss was born on June 5, 1956 in Mount Clemens, Michigan, but considered that Portsmouth, New Hampshire, was his hometown.

		Searfoss received a bachelor's degree in aeronautical engineering from the United States Air Force Academy in 1978 and a master's degree in aeronautical science from the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) on a grant from the National Science Foundation in 1979.

		He graduated in 1980 from the pilot undergraduate training at Williams Air Force Base in Arizona. From 1981 to 1984, Searfoss flew on the F-111F tactical attack plane at RAF Lakenheath, England, followed by a tour at Mountain Home Air Force Base in Idaho, where he was an F-111A instructor and weapons officer until 1987. 1988, attended the US Naval Testing Pilot School. UU on the Patuxent River in Maryland, as an exchange officer for the US Air Force.

		Ascending to the rank of colonel in the Air Force, Searfoss recorded more than 6,100 hours in 84 different types of aircraft.

		After joining NASA but before making his first space flight, Searfoss served as "Cape Crusader", part of a team responsible for the crew's entry before the launch and departure of the crew after landing. Subsequently, he was assigned to flight software verification in the Shuttle Avionics Integration Laboratory (SAIL) at the Johnson Space Center in Houston and served as the representative of the Office of Astronauts for both flight crew procedures and the development of computer software for ferries.

		Searfoss also served as head of the vehicle operations and systems arm, leading a team of several astronauts and support engineers working on the space shuttle and systems development of the International Space Station, encounter, landing and deployment operations. , as well as advanced project initiatives.

		Searfoss retired from the body of astronauts and the United States Air Force in 1998, but his departure did not mark the end of his work as a pilot.

		From 2001 to 2003, Searfoss flew as a research pilot in the flight crew branch at NASA's Dryden Flight Research Center (now Armstrong) in California.

		Searfoss was named head judge of the Ansari X Award, which chairs the $ 10 million contest won in 2004 by Scaled Composites' SpaceShipOne for the first privately financed suborbital manned vehicle to fly into space. He was also one of the two test pilots to qualify to fly the now ex EZ-Rocket by XCOR Aerospace, an experimental rocket and predecessor of the planned. Payment Management Lynx suborbital space plane.

		He served as a pilot pilot at the National School of Test Pilots at the Mojave Air and Space Port in California, a consultant and motivational speaker. Searfoss also advised several Hollywood films, including "The Core" in 2003 and "Oblivion" in 2013. He had an appearance in the 2011 superhero movie "Green Lantern" starring Ryan Reynolds.

		In 2008, Searfoss appeared in a television commercial for Volkswagen, appearing in front of a VW Beetle "speaker".

		Searfoss received the Air Force Recognition Medal, a Distinguished Flying Cross and the NASA Outstanding Service and Outstanding Leadership medals, among other awards and honors.

		Searfoss is survived by his wife, Julie (McGuire), and his daughters Megan, Liz and Camille.



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