Robert Stewart
Robert Lee Stewart is an American Army officer, helicopter pilot, test pilot, and former NASA astronaut. Selected with NASA Astronaut Group 8 in 1978, he became the first active-duty United States Army officer to fly in space.
- Born
- August 13, 1942
- Died
- N/A
- Birthplace
- Washington, District of Columbia,United States
Flights
2
Spacewalks
2
EVA time
12 hours, 12 minutes
In space
12 days, 49 minutes
Bio
Stewart's background was Army aviation: helicopter operations, combat service, and flight-test work. That experience led him into shuttle mission-specialist training at a time when NASA was expanding and payload operations.
His first spaceflight was STS-41-B in 1984. Stewart and Bruce McCandless performed EVAs using the Manned Maneuvering Unit, helping prove untethered maneuvering and shuttle EVA techniques.
Stewart flew again on STS-51-J in 1985, the first flight of Atlantis and a classified Department of Defense mission. After NASA, he returned to Army assignments and later retired as a brigadier general.
His career is distinctive because it brought Army aviation directly into the shuttle astronaut corps. His STS-41-B EVA work is central to the shuttle program's early spacewalk history.