STS-53

David M. Walker

• Birthday: 05/20/1944
• Role: Commander
• Nationality: American
• First Flight: 11/08/1984
• Last Flight: 09/07/1995

David Mathieson “Dave” Walker was an American naval officer and aviator, fighter pilot, test pilot, and a former NASA astronaut. He flew aboard four Space Shuttle missions in the 1980s and 1990s.

Robert D. Cabana

• Birthday: 01/23/1949
• Role: Pilot
• Nationality: American
• First Flight: 10/06/1990
• Last Flight: 12/04/1998

Robert Donald Cabana is the director of NASA’s John F. Kennedy Space Center, a former NASA astronaut, and a veteran of four Space Shuttle flights. He is also a former naval flight officer and naval aviator in the United States Marine Corps.

Michael R. Clifford

• Birthday: 10/13/1952
• Role: Mission Specialist
• Nationality: American
• First Flight: 12/02/1992
• Last Flight: 03/22/1996

Michael Richard Uram “Rich” Clifford is a former United States Army officer and NASA astronaut. Clifford is considered a Master Army Aviator and has logged over 3,400 hours flying in a wide variety of fixed and rotary winged aircraft. Clifford retired from the U.S. Army at the rank of lieutenant colonel. He has logged over 12 hours of spacewalk time over three Space Shuttle missions. He is also one of the first people to conduct a spacewalk while docked to an orbiting space station. The spacewalk was conducted during STS-76, while docked at the Russian space station Mir.

Guion Bluford

• Birthday: 11/22/1942
• Role: Mission Specialist
• Nationality: American
• First Flight: 08/30/1983
• Last Flight: 12/02/1992

Guion Stewart Bluford Jr., Ph.D. is an American aerospace engineer, retired U.S. Air Force officer and fighter pilot, and former NASA astronaut, who was the first African American in space.[1] Before becoming an astronaut, he was an officer in the U.S. Air Force, where he remained while assigned to NASA, rising to the rank of Colonel. He participated in four Space Shuttle flights between 1983 and 1992. In 1983, as a member of the crew of the Orbiter Challenger on the mission STS-8, he became the first African American in space as well as the second person of African ancestry in space, after Cuban cosmonaut Arnaldo Tamayo Méndez.

James S. Voss

• Birthday: 03/03/1949
• Role: Mission Specialist
• Nationality: American
• First Flight: 11/24/1991
• Last Flight: 03/08/2001

James Shelton Voss is a retired United States Army Colonel and NASA astronaut. During his time with NASA, Voss flew in space five times on board the Space Shuttle and International Space Station. He also served as deputy of Flight Operations for the Space Station Program Mission Integration and Operations Office. While participating in ISS Expedition 2, he and Susan Helms conducted an 8-hour and 56 minute spacewalk, the longest to date.

STS-53

• Type: Government/Top Secret
• Orbit: Low Earth Orbit
• Launch Cost: $450,000,000

STS-53 was a Space Shuttle Discovery mission in support of the United States Department of Defense. The mission was launched on 2 December 1992 from Kennedy Space Center, Florida.

Launch Complex 39A

Kennedy Space Center, FL, USA

Launch Complex 39A has witnessed the launch of 174 rockets, including 173 orbital launch attempts, while Kennedy Space Center, FL, USA, has been the site for 232 rocket launches.

National Aeronautics and Space Administration Space Shuttle

The Space Shuttle is a retired, partially reusable low Earth orbital spacecraft system operated from 1981 to 2011 by the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) as part of the Space Shuttle program. Its official program name was Space Transportation System (STS). Five complete Space Shuttle orbiter vehicles were built and flown on a total of 135 missions from 1981 to 2011.