Henry Warren Hartsfield Jr. (21 November 1933 – 17 July 2014) was a United States Air Force Colonel and NASA astronaut who logged over 480 hours in space. He was inducted into the United States Astronaut Hall of Fame in 2006.
Personal data
Henry Hartsfield was born in Birmingham, Alabama on 21 November 1933. He was married to the former Judy Frances Massey of Princeton, North Carolina, and has a daughter named Judy Lynn, born 29 May 1958. His younger daughter, Keely Warren, born on 14 May 1959, died on 10 March 2014.
Education
Hartsfield graduated from West End High School, Birmingham, Alabama. He later earned a Bachelor of Science degree in Physics from Auburn University in 1954, where he was a member of the Delta Chi Fraternity. Hartsfield performed graduate work in physics at Duke University and in Astronautics at the U.S. Air Force Institute of Technology at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base. He was also awarded a Master of Science degree in Engineering Science from the University of Tennessee in 1971.
USAF experience
Hartsfield received his commission through the Reserve Officer Training Corps (ROTC) at Auburn University. He entered the U.S. Air Force in 1955, and his assignments included a tour with the 53rd Tactical Fighter Squadron in Bitburg, West Germany. He is also a graduate of the U.S. Air Force Test Pilot School at Edwards Air Force Base, California, and was an instructor there prior to his assignment in 1966 to the USAF Manned Orbiting Laboratory (MOL) program as an astronaut. After the cancellation of the MOL program in June 1969, he was reassigned to NASA.
He logged over 7,400 hours of flying time—of which over 6,150 hours are in the North American F-86 Sabre, North American F-100 Super Sabre, Lockheed F-104 Starfighter, Republic F-105 Thunderchief, Convair F-106 Delta Dart, Lockheed T-33, and Northrop T-38 Talon jet aircraft.
NASA experience
Hartsfield became part of NASA Astronaut Group 7 in September 1969. He was a member of the astronaut support crew for Apollo 16 and served as a member of the astronaut support crew for the Skylab-2, -3, and -4 missions. He also was a CAPCOM on STS-1.
Hartsfield retired in August 1977 from the United States Air Force with more than 22 years of active service but continued his assignment as a NASA astronaut in a civilian capacity. He was a member of the orbital flight test missions group of the Astronaut Office and was responsible for supporting the development of the Space Shuttle's entry flight control system and its associated interfaces.
Hartsfield served as backup pilot for STS-2 and STS-3, Columbias second and third orbital flight tests.
Hartsfield was the pilot on STS-4, the fourth and final orbital test flight of the shuttle Columbia, which launched from Kennedy Space Center, Florida, on 27 June 1982. He was accompanied by Thomas K. Mattingly II (spacecraft commander) on this seven-day mission designed to: further verify ascent and entry phases of shuttle missions; perform continued studies of the effects of long-term thermal extremes on the Orbiter subsystems; and conduct a survey of Orbiter-induced contamination on the orbiter payload bay. Additionally, the crew operated several scientific experiments located in the Orbiter's cabin as well as in the payload bay. These experiments included the Continuous Flow Electrophoresis System (CFES), designed to investigate the separation of biological materials in a fluid according to their surface electrical charge. The crew is also credited with effecting an in-flight repair which enabled them to activate the first operational "Getaway Special" — comprising nine experiments that range from algae and duckweed growth in space to fruit fly and brine shrimp genetic studies. STS-4 completed 112 orbits of the Earth before landing on a concrete runway at Edwards Air Force Base, California, on 4 July 1982.