• Nationality

    American

  • Missions

    STS9, STS-45

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Byron K. Lichtenberg

Astronaut

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Byron Lichtenberg

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Byron K. Lichtenberg is an American engi­neer and NASA astronaut. 

Byron Kurt Lichtenberg was born on February 19, 1948 in Stroudsburg, Pennsylvania, U.S. He received Sc.B. in aero­space engi­neer­ing from Brown University, S.M. in mechan­i­cal engi­neer­ing from MIT, Sc.D. in bio­med­ical engi­neer­ing from MIT, and lat­er Sc.D. from Westminster College (hon­orary).

From 1978 to 1984 Byron K. Lichtenberg was a Researcher at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)/Canadian Vestibular exper­i­ments on Spacelab 1, Spacelab D‑1, Spacelab SLS1 and SLS2, and a Co-prin­ci­pal inves­ti­ga­tor for the Mental Workload and Performance exper­i­ment flown on IML1 to assess human-com­put­er work­sta­tion char­ac­ter­is­tics for the Space Station.

Byron K. Lichtenberg was the first Payload spe­cial­ist. He flew on Spacelab‑1 (STS9) mis­sion (10 days in 1983), con­duct­ed mul­ti­ple exper­i­ments in life sci­ences, mate­ri­als sci­ences, Earth obser­va­tions, astron­o­my and solar physics, upper atmos­phere and plas­ma physics. His sec­ond flight was ATLAS1 (STS-45) Spacelab mis­sion (9 days in 1992); con­duct­ed 13 exper­i­ments in Atmospheric sci­ences and astron­o­my. Lichtenberg has flown 310 orbits, and has logged 468 hours in space.

He was a Founder of Payload Systems, Inc., a com­pa­ny that has pro­vid­ed hard­ware and flight sup­port for MODE and MACE exper­i­ments for the Space Shuttle and ISS. They also were the first com­mer­cial user of the Mir Space Station, fly­ing pro­tein crys­tal growth exper­i­ments to Mir in the ear­ly 1990’s. Lichtenberg was a President of Zero Gravity Corporation, found­ed to make par­a­bol­ic, weight­less air­craft flights avail­able to the gen­er­al pub­lic. Byron K. Lichtenberg was an Air Force fight­er pilot for 23 years, fly­ing the F‑4, F‑100, and A‑10. Survived 238 com­bat mis­sions dur­ing the Vietnam War, and received 2 Distinguished Flying Crosses, 10 Air Medals, and numer­ous oth­er dec­o­ra­tions. Lichtenberg flied as a Captain for a major Airline. 

Byron K. Lichtenberg was award­ed the NASA Space Flight Medal (two awards), the AIAA Haley Space Flight Award, and the FAI Komorov Award. He is the Founding Member, Association of Space Explorers, X‑Prize Foundation, and the International Space University; also a Member, User Panel for National Space Biomedical Research Institute, Tau Beta Pi (hon­orary engi­neer­ing soci­ety), and Sigma Xi (hon­orary sci­en­tif­ic society).

Byron K. Lichtenberg will unfor­tu­nate­ly not be able to be present in per­son, but will present a video mes­sage.


Sources
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Wikipedia
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www​.nasa​.gov
Wikipedia