Robert Lee "Hoot" Gibson is a former American naval officer and aviator, test pilot, aeronautical engineer, and a retired NASA astronaut, as well as a professional pilot who currently races regularly at the annual Reno Air Races.
STS-41-B was the tenth Space Shuttle mission and the fourth of the Space Shuttle Challenger. It deployed 2 communication satellites and inluded the first untethered spacewalk. It was also the first shuttle mission to land at Kennedy Space Center.
Low Earth OrbitSTS-61-C was the twenty-fourth mission of the shuttle program and the seventh of the Space Shuttle Columbia. The mission included the second African-American shuttle pilot, future NASA Administrator Charles Bolden, the first Costa Rican born astronaut and the second sitting politican to fly in space: Bill Nelson.
Low Earth OrbitSTS-27 was the twenty-seventh and the third for Atlantis. It carried a classified payload for the Department of Defence. The heat shielding was substantially damaged during lift-off, impacting the right wing. The crew narrowly survived re-entry with a steal bar taking the brunt of the heat before beginning to burn through the aluminum structure.
Low Earth OrbitSTS-71 was the third mission of the US/Russian Shuttle-Mir Program and the first Space Shuttle docking to Russian space station Mir. It started on 27 June 1995 with the launch of Space Shuttle Atlantis from launch pad 39A at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The shuttle delivered a relief crew of two cosmonauts Anatoly Solovyev and Nikolai Budarin to the station and recovered Increment astronaut Norman Thagard. Atlantis returned to Earth on 7 July with a crew of eight. It was the first of seven straight missions to Mir flown by Atlantis.
Low Earth OrbitThe National Aeronautics and Space Administration is an independent agency of the executive branch of the United States federal government responsible for the civilian space program, as well as aeronautics and aerospace research. NASA have many launch facilities but most are inactive. The most commonly used pad will be LC-39B at Kennedy Space Center in Florida.