Hank Hartsfield Jr., former commander of the Discovery space shuttle's maiden flight, has died due to complications from a back surgery he had a few months ago. He was 80 years old.
Hartsfield was born in Birmingham, Alabama on Nov. 21, 1933. He joined the Air Force in 1955, becoming an instructor after finishing his assignments in Bitburg, Germany and graduating from the test pilot school in California's Edwards Air Force Base. It was in 1966 when he was assigned as an astronaut to the Manned Orbiting Laboratory Program.
Hartsfield joined NASA in 1969, piloting the Columbia in 1982 for the last test flight for the space shuttle program. His first flight into space was with commander Thomas Mattingly and involved circling Earth 112 times, performing experiments and operating classified missile launch-detection systems at the same time. The crew returned on Independence Day and was greeted by President Ronald Reagan at the Edwards Air Force Base.
He later on commanded the Discovery's maiden voyage on Aug. 30, 1984 for the STS-41D mission and the Challenger on Oct. 30, 1985. His flight on the Challenger holds the record for most number of crew members sent into space with 8 individuals, as well as being the first mission to be directed and funded by a foreign country (the Spacelab module attached to the payload bay of the Challenger was overseen former West Germany). Hartsfield flew three times for the space shuttle program, logging in a total of 483 hours in space.
He left NASA in 1998 but not before helping set up the International Space Station. Hartsfield was inducted in 2006 into the U.S. Astronaut Hall of Fame, and earlier, in 1983, into the Alabama Aviation Hall of Fame.
"Obviously, I have many, many memories of my time with Hank. He was a great commander and pilot and I'll always feel honored to have been a member of his crew," shared Mike Mullane, Hartsfield's fellow astronaut and STS-41D crew member.
Within the last year, two other astronauts have died: Scott Carpenter, one of the last surviving astronauts of the original space program in October 2013, and Dale Gardner, a part of the Discovery crew, just a few months ago in February.
Hartsfield's passing also coincides with the 45th anniversary of the first moon landing. Man first walked on the moon on July 20, 1969.
