Oswald Credit: www.spacefacts.de |
Status: Inactive; Active 1985-2000. Born: 1951-06-30. Spaceflights: 3 . Total time in space: 33.94 days. Birth Place: Seattle, Washington.
Grew up in Bellingham, Washington, son of a physician. Educated Annapolis; Patuxent. US Navy test pilot.
Official NASA Biography as of June 2016:Stephen S. Oswald (Mr.)
NASA Astronaut
PERSONAL DATA: Born June 30, 1951, in Seattle, Washington, but considers Bellingham, Washington, to be his hometown. Married to the former Diane K. Kalklosch of Fullerton, California. They have three children, Monique, Janna, and Scott.
EDUCATION: Graduated from Bellingham High School, Bellingham, Washington, in 1969; received a bachelor of science degree in aerospace engineering from the U.S. Naval Academy in 1973.
ORGANIZATIONS: Member of the Society of Experimental Test Pilots, the Association of Space Explorers, the Naval Reserve Association, the Distinguished Eagle Scout Association, and the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics.
AWARDS: Recipient of the Legion of Merit, the Distinguished Flying Cross, the Meritorious Service Medal, the Navy Commendation Medal (2), the NASA Outstanding Leadership Medal, the NASA Exceptional Service Medal (2), the NASA Space Flight Medal (3), and various service awards.
EXPERIENCE: Oswald graduated from the U.S. Naval Academy in 1973, and was designated a naval aviator in September 1974. Following training in the A-7 aircraft, he flew aboard the USS Midway from 1975 through 1977. In 1978, Oswald attended the U.S. Naval Test Pilot School at Patuxent River, Maryland. Upon graduation, he remained at the Naval Air Test Center conducting flying qualities, performance, and propulsion flight tests on the A-7 and F/A-18 aircraft through 1981. Following tours as an F/A-18 flight instructor and as a catapult officer aboard the USS Coral Sea, Oswald resigned from active Navy duty and joined Westinghouse Electric Corporation as a civilian test pilot. Oswald is a captain in the Naval Reserve, currently assigned to the Office of Naval Research. He has logged 7,000+ flight hours in over 40 different aircraft.
NASA EXPERIENCE: Oswald joined NASA in November 1984 as an aerospace engineer and instructor pilot and was selected as an astronaut candidate in June 1985. His technical assignments within the Astronaut Office have included: flight crew representative to Kennedy Space Center; flight software testing with the Shuttle Avionics Integration Laboratory; crew representative to the Marshall Space Flight Center on solid rocket booster redesign; and spacecraft communicator (CAPCOM) in the Mission Control Center during Space Shuttle missions. He was also the Chief of the Operations Development Branch within the Astronaut Office and served as Assistant Director of Engineering at Johnson Space Center.
Oswald has piloted two missions aboard the Space Shuttle Discovery: STS-42, the International Microgravity Laboratory-1 mission, flown in January 1992, and STS-56, the second Atmospheric Laboratory for Applications and Science (ATLAS-2) mission, flown in April 1993. Oswald commanded STS-67, the second flight of the Astro observatory (Astro II), which flew on the Space Shuttle Endeavour in March, 1995. This mission established a mission duration record for Space Shuttle at 17 days. With the completion of his third space flight, Oswald has logged over 33 days in space.
After STS-67, Oswald was assigned to NASA Headquarters in Washington, DC as Deputy Associate Administrator for Space Operations. In this capacity, he was responsible for Space Shuttle, Expendable Launch Vehicles, and Space Communications for the Agency. After nearly two and a half years in Washington, Oswald returned to the Astronaut Office in July 1998.
Oswald retired from NASA in January 2000.
FEBRUARY 2000
Oswald piloted two missions aboard the Space Shuttle Discovery, STS-42 and STS-56 flown in January 1992 and April 1993, respectively. The International Microgravity Laboratory-1, the primary payload on STS-42, included 55 major microgravity experiments conducted over the eight-day flight in Discovery's Spacelab module. STS-56 was the second Atmospheric Laboratory for Applications and Science (ATLAS-2) mission. This nine-day flight also included the deployment and retrieval of the SPARTAN spacecraft.
Most recently, Oswald commanded STS-67, the second flight of the Astro observatory (Astro II), which flew on the Space Shuttle Endeavour in March, 1995. In addition to collecting an unprecedented amount of ultraviolet astronomy data, STS-67 also established a mission duration record for Space Shuttle at 17 days. With the completion of his third space flight, Oswald has logged over 33 days in space.
The group was selected to provide pilot, engineer, and scientist astronauts for space shuttle flights.. Qualifications: Pilots: Bachelor's degree in engineering, biological science, physical science or mathematics. Advanced degree desirable. At least 1,000 flight-hours of pilot-in-command time. Flight test experience desirable. Excellent health. Vision minimum 20/50 uncorrected, correctable to 20/20 vision; maximum sitting blood pressure 140/90. Height between 163 and 193 cm.
Mission Specialists: Bachelor's degree in engineering, biological science, physical science or mathematics and minimum three years of related experience or an advanced degree. Vision minimum 20/150 uncorrected, correctable to 20/20. Maximum sitting blood pressure of 140/90. Height between 150 and 193 cm.. Thirteen astronauts, taken from 33 civilians and 133 military applicants for the 1984 selection. 59 of these were screened for the final selection.
Manned seven crew. Carried International Microgravity Laboratory-1. Payloads: International Microgravity Laboratory (lML)-1, getaway special (GAS) bridge with 10 getaway specials, IMAX camera, Gelation of Sols: Applied Microgravity Research (GOSAMR)-1, Investigations Into Polymer Mem-brane Processing (IPMP), Radiation Monitoring Equipment (RME)-lll, Student Experiment 81-09: Convection in Zero Gravity, Student Experiment 83-02: Capillary Rise of Liquid Through Granular Porous Media.
Manned five crew. Carried Atlas-2; deployed and retrieved Spartan 201. Payloads: Atmospheric Laboratory for Applications and Science (ATLAS) 2, Shuttle Solar Backscat-ter Ultraviolet (SSBUV) A, Shuttle Pointed Autonomous Research Tool for Astronomy (SPARTAN) 201 (Solar Wind Generation Experi-ment), Solar Ultraviolet Experiment (SUVE), Commercial Material Dispersion Apparatus (CMIX), Physiological and Anatomical Rodent Experiment (PARE), Hand-held, Earth-oriented, Real-time, Cooperative, User-friendly, Location-targeting, and Environmental System (HER-CULES), Shuttle Amateur Radio Experiment (SAREX) II, Space Tissue Loss (STL), Air Force Maui Optical Site (AMOS), Cosmic Radiation Effects and Activation Monitor (CREAM), Radiation Monitoring Equipment (RME) III.
Carried Astro 2 astronomy payload with 3 UV telescopes.(attached to Endeavour).Payloads: Ultraviolet Astronomy (ASTRO) 2; Middeck Active Control Experiment (MACE); Protein Crystal Growth—Thermal Enclosure System (PCG-TES) 03; Protein Crystal Growth—Single-Locker Thermal Enclosure System (PCG-STES) 02; Commercial Materials Dispersion Apparatus Minilab/Instrumentation Technology Associates, Inc. Experiments (CMIX) 03; Shuttle Amateur Radio Experiment (SAREX) II; two getaway special experiments.