William B. Lenoir
William Benjamin Lenoir was an American electrical engineer, scientist-astronaut, NASA astronaut, and later NASA manager. Selected in NASA Astronaut Group 6 in 1967, he trained through the Apollo Applications and Skylab era before flying during the opening years of shuttle operations.
- Born
- March 14, 1939
- Died
- August 26, 2010
- Birthplace
- Miami, Florida,United States
Flights
1
Spacewalks
0
EVA time
N/A
In space
5 days, 2 hours, 14 minutes
Bio
Lenoir's technical background came from electrical engineering at MIT. He was assigned as backup Science Pilot for Skylab 3 and Skylab 4, placing him close to NASA's first long-duration space-station research program even though he did not fly on Skylab.
His only spaceflight was STS-5 in 1982, the first operational Space Shuttle mission. Lenoir served as as Columbia deployed commercial satellites and demonstrated routine payload operations after the four orbital test flights.
A planned on STS-5 was canceled because of spacesuit problems, but the mission still marked the shuttle's operational debut. Lenoir's flight connected scientist-astronaut training from the Skylab era to shuttle payload operations.
After leaving the astronaut office, Lenoir returned to NASA management and later worked in industry. He died in 2010 after injuries from a bicycle accident.