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This article includes a number of stories, notes and accounts retold by alumni and friends of the college, as well as highlights from a history of Auburn aerospace engineering compiled by department head John Cochran.<\/em><\/p>\n NASA\u2019s first space shuttle mission lifted off from Kennedy Space Center on April 12, 1981, when the orbiter Columbia, carrying two crew members, rocketed out of the atmosphere. It was 20 years after President John F. Kennedy\u2019s 1961 announcement that the United States would accomplish manned space flight by the end of the decade, a feat many thought was impossible.<\/p>\n At the time, President Kennedy\u2019s vision included \u201clanding a man on the moon and returning him safely to Earth.\u201d But Americans would soon realize that they had great curiosity about the new frontier. The space agency expanded, taking on new missions and developing vehicles such as the space shuttle, the popular designation for the Space Transportation System, or STS, which had been considered only as fantasy not long before.<\/p>\n With the expansion of the space program, Auburn\u2019s aerospace engineering program also grew in students and in research. John Cochran<\/a> \u201866, head of Auburn\u2019s Department of Aerospace Engineering, says the program\u2019s curriculum began to include more physics and math, as well as courses in astronautics, boundary layer theory, gas dynamics and space propulsions systems.<\/p>\n Faculty members such as Richard Sforzini, Kenneth Harwell, Branimir Djordjevic, Fred Martin and James Nichols arrived on campus for the opportunity. Cochran, John Burkhalter \u201863 and Butch Foster \u201867, the program\u2019s second doctoral graduate, are still with the department. Even in the early days of NASA, the impact of Auburn engineers, their designs and workmanship could be felt throughout the budding space organization.<\/p>\n When the space shuttle program was in its infancy in the late 1960s, astronauts such as T.K. Mattingly, a \u201858 graduate in aerospace engineering, were cutting their teeth on Mercury, Gemini and Apollo. Later, Mattingly would command STS missions in a modern space craft built for modern space travel along with astronauts and Auburn physics graduates Kathy Thornton and Hank Hartsfield.<\/p>\n But behind the scenes, Auburn aerospace engineering alums, such as Gerald Smith \u201861, Walt Woltosz \u201869, Gary Abercrombie \u201870 and Robert Champion \u201886, mulled over its design, maneuverability and safety, perfecting vehicle components and tweaking systems<\/a>.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Champion, who began his NASA career as a propulsion engineer in the preliminary design office at Marshall Space Center, earned NASA\u2019s Medal for Exceptional Achievement for technical leadership in space shuttle propulsion systems. Smith also spent much of his career designing and developing propulsion systems at Marshall, but his biggest challenge came when he was tapped to lead the efforts to design, build, qualify and fly the shuttle\u2019s redesigned solid-rocket motor following the Challenger accident.<\/p>\n The United States lost seven astronauts that day in 1986, and the world watched in horror as the space shuttle broke apart high above the Atlantic Ocean. Before Challenger, most Americans had never heard of an \u201cO-ring,\u201d nor could they tell you how a solid rocket booster propelled the shuttle into space. In the weeks following the accident, the entire country would learn how the failure of those components could change the course of American history. The tragedy would also serve as a harsh reminder of the risks associated with space flight that so many Americans had put to bed following the lunar landing and unprecedented success of Apollo missions.<\/p>\n The space shuttle was a complex vehicle, and not perfect \u2014 no machine is. It could be independently maneuvered in and out of orbit, acting as a glider for re-entry with support from an orbital maneuvering system. The orbiter launched vertically, carrying four to eight astronauts and up to 50,000 pounds of cargo, and is the only winged, manned spacecraft that has been placed in orbit, as well as the only reusable space vehicle to make multiple space flights. It\u2019s hard to imagine that the man who first envisioned such a spacecraft may have done so as early as the 1950s, and that much of its continued success was directed by Auburn engineers.<\/p>\n Wayne Owens, \u201964 mechanical engineering, worked at the shuttle’s payloads directorate on processing payloads for launch and then with cargo integration and operations at Johnson Space Center, where he was responsible for all shuttle payload activities.<\/p>\n Carver Kennedy, a \u201952 graduate in mechanical engineering, was responsible for the development and production of solid rocket motors for industry and NASA\u2019s shuttle. After Challenger, he served on the Kennedy Space Center Accident Investigation Board and the Rogers Commission<\/a>, charged with investigating the accident. He testified at the Congressional Committee hearings before he returned home to help with the redesign, one of nine commission recommendations to improve safety.<\/p>\n When Discovery lifted off in September 1988, the launch represented a test of the redesigned boosters, as well as a shift to a more conservative position on safety. Following the success of that mission, NASA continued a regular schedule of STS flights that would continue, generally uninterrupted, for 15 years. Smith and Kennedy, along with a number of other Auburn engineers, supported a redesign project for the solid-rocket motor that helped to restore confidence in the nation\u2019s space program.<\/p>\n In the \u201880s and \u201890s, astronauts Jan Davis<\/a>, a \u201877 graduate in mechanical engineering, and Jim Voss<\/a>, a \u201872 graduate in aerospace engineering, flew shuttle missions, logging hundreds of hours in space. Voss, who helped build the international space station, even carried a few Auburn items into zero gravity \u2014 some Auburn t-shirts and a flag \u2014 on one of his five missions and four spacewalks. Before she flew missions, Davis was the lead engineer for the redesign of the shuttle\u2019s solid rocket booster external tank attach ring.<\/p>\n Jim Kennedy<\/a>, a \u201972 graduate in mechanical engineering, left the aerospace industry to work in the project control office for space shuttle projects when he could no longer ignore his passion for spaceflight. He is of no relation to Carver Kennedy; they simply have Auburn and the space shuttle in common.<\/p>\n Kennedy was made a manager of the shuttle program planning and management systems office. He played major roles in projects that included the concept flight vehicle Delta Clipper Experimental, DC-XA and X-34. In 1996, he became program manager of the space shuttle solid rocket booster project office.<\/p>\n [Continued]<\/em> Don Magnusson, a \u201867 graduate in electrical engineering, began his career with the space shuttle program six years before the first mission flew, and he saw its final return on Aug. 31. There are few others that can make that claim.<\/p>\n Magnusson has worked in the Shuttle Avionics Integration Laboratory (SAIL) for more than 33 years, modeling software that controls the space shuttle in flight. On the day Atlantis landed, Magnusson flew the final simulator flight from Johnson Space Center in Houston.The space shuttle program holds a special place in the hearts of Auburn engineers, so much so that in 2009 Mattingly presented the College of Engineering<\/a>with his NASA Ambassador of Exploration Award \u2014 a moon rock he brought back from one of his expeditions.<\/p>\n Earlier this year, Auburn alums Liz Pattison, a \u201900 graduate in mechanical engineering, and aerospace graduates David Hamilton \u201967, Joel Sills \u201987 and Fred Martin \u201978 and \u201980, got together at Johnson Space Center to commemorate those efforts and recall its challenges as well as its successes.They serve as a reminder that Auburn engineers have made an impact on our nation\u2019s space travel and the space shuttle program, and that they will continue that legacy for years to come.<\/p>\n Two, please <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" This article includes a number of stories, notes and accounts retold by alumni and friends of the college, as well as highlights from a history of Auburn aerospace engineering compiled by department head John Cochran. NASA\u2019s first space shuttle mission lifted off from Kennedy Space Center on April 12, 1981, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[4],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"\n <\/div> ![\"Flickr\"](\"http:\/\/eng.auburn.edu\/images\/flickr.png\")
<\/a> view Auburn Engineering<\/a> on flickr ![\"Auburn](\"http:\/\/eng.auburn.edu\/images\/flicker-icon.png\"){kind=icon}
<\/a><\/div><\/div>\n[Continued]<\/em>
\nWoltosz and Abercrombie developed the space shuttle\u2019s rollover maneuver in 1971 by using computer software they created called the rocket ascent G-limited moment-balanced optimization program, or RAGMOP, to optimize the vehicle\u2019s pitch and yaw.<\/p>\n <\/div> <\/a> view Auburn Engineering<\/a> on flickr <\/a><\/div><\/div>\n
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\nAuburn engineers have dominated NASA\u2019s manned space flight operations and a number of its programs, none more so than the shuttle. Its 135 missions carried huge payloads, made numerous trips to the international space station and recovered satellites until the program ended this summer with Atlantis.<\/p>\n
\n<\/strong>Above left, T.K. Mattingly, \u201858 aerospace, and Hank Hartsfield, a \u201854 physics graduate, flew one mission together on STS-4. Their seven-day mission served as Columbia\u2019s fourth and final orbital test flight \u2014 Mattingly was the commander, Hartsfield the pilot. Because of its test flight status, they were the only two members of the shuttle\u2019s crew, unlike later missions that carried four to eight astronauts. This article includes a number of stories, notes and accounts retold by alumni and friends of the college, as well as highlights from a history of Auburn aerospace engineering compiled by department head John Cochran.<\/p>\n <\/div> <\/a> view Auburn Engineering<\/a> on flickr <\/a><\/div><\/div>\n