William A. Pailes
American - (USAF)
Retired
Date of Birth: June 26, 1952
Age: 72
William Arthur Pailes (Colonel, USAF) (born June 26, 1952) was a USAF astronaut in the Manned Spaceflight Engineer Program during the mid-1980s. He served as a Payload Specialist on STS-51-J Atlantis (October 3–7, 1985).
Space Shuttle Atlantis / OV-104 | STS-51-J
National Aeronautics and Space Administration | United States of AmericaKennedy Space Center, FL, USA
Oct. 3, 1985, 3:15 p.m.
Status: Success
Mission:
STS-51-J was the twenty-first space shuttle mission and the maiden flight of the Space Shuttle Atlantis. It was the second mission dedicated to deploying a Department of Defence payload. It was a classified mission however we do know that it deployed two 10 satellites.
Low Earth OrbitThe United States Air Force (USAF) is the air service branch of the United States Armed Forces, and is one of the eight uniformed services of the United States. Originally created on 1 August 1907, as a part of the United States Army Signal Corps, the USAF was established as a separate branch of the United States Armed Forces in 1947 with the enactment of the National Security Act of 1947.
Kinetica 1
DEAR-3 & 10 other satellites
Launch Area 130 - Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center, People's Republic of ChinaLaunched 11 satellites including AZSPACE's DEAR-3 prototype recoverable science experiment spacecraft and the French CASAA-Sat cubesat from the Marse…
Soyuz 2.1b
Resurs-P No.5
31/6 - Baikonur Cosmodrome, Republic of KazakhstanResurs-P is a series of Russian commercial Earth observation satellites capable of acquiring high-resolution imagery (resolution up to 1.0 m).
Falcon 9
Starlink Group 12-2
Launch Complex 39A - Kennedy Space Center, FL, USAA batch of 21 satellites for the Starlink mega-constellation - SpaceX's project for space-based Internet communication system.
Electron
StriX Launch 6
Rocket Lab Launch Complex 1B - Rocket Lab Launch Complex 1, Mahia Peninsula, New ZealandSynthetic aperture radar satellites for Japanese Earth imaging company Synspective.
Falcon 9
Bandwagon 2 (Dedicated Mid-Inclination Rideshare)
Space Launch Complex 4E - Vandenberg SFB, CA, USADedicated rideshare flight to a mid-inclination orbit with dozens of small microsatellites and nanosatellites for commercial and government customers…
