Charles D. Walker
Charles David Walker is an American engineer and former who flew three Space Shuttle missions for McDonnell Douglas. He became one of the clearest examples of an industry payload specialist operating company-developed equipment in orbit.
- Born
- August 29, 1948
- Died
- N/A
- Birthplace
- Bedford, Indiana,United States
Flights
3
Spacewalks
0
EVA time
N/A
In space
19 days, 21 hours, 56 minutes
Bio
Walker studied aeronautical and astronautical engineering at Purdue University and joined McDonnell Douglas after graduation. His work centered on electrophoresis processing equipment, a commercial microgravity research system intended to study material separation in space.
NASA flew Walker on STS-41-D, STS-51-D, and STS-61-B in 1984 and 1985. On each mission he operated the Continuous Flow Electrophoresis System and helped demonstrate how private-industry experiments could be integrated into shuttle operations.
After his flights, Walker remained active in space-industry and education work. His career is important because it sits between NASA astronaut operations, commercial payload development, and the early shuttle-era experiment economy.