Ronald John Grabe (born June 13, 1945) is a former

NASA The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA ) is an independent agencies of the United States government, independent agency of the federal government of the United States, US federal government responsible for the United States ...

astronaut and retired

United States Air Force The United States Air Force (USAF) is the Air force, air service branch of the United States Department of Defense. It is one of the six United States Armed Forces and one of the eight uniformed services of the United States. Tracing its ori ...

colonel Colonel ( ; abbreviated as Col., Col, or COL) is a senior military Officer (armed forces), officer rank used in many countries. It is also used in some police forces and paramilitary organizations. In the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries, a colon ...

. He has earned the Air Force Distinguished Flying Cross, the

Air Medal The Air Medal (AM) is a military decoration of the United States Armed Forces. It was created in 1942 and is awarded for single acts of heroism or meritorious achievement while participating in aerial flight. Criteria The Air Medal was establi ...

with 7 Oak Leaf Clusters, the Air Force Meritorious Service Medal, the Liethen-Tittle Award (for Outstanding Student at the USAF Test Pilot School), the Royal Air Force Cross, the

NASA Exceptional Service Medal The NASA Exceptional Service Medal is an award granted to U.S. government employees for significant sustained performance characterized by unusual initiative or creative ability that clearly demonstrates substantial improvement in engineering, a ...

, and

NASA Space Flight Medal The NASA Space Flight Medal is a decoration of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. According to its statutes, it is awarded "for significant achievement or service during individual participation as a civilian or military astronau ...

Education and early career

Grabe graduated from

Stuyvesant High School Stuyvesant High School ( ) is a co-ed, State school, public, college-preparatory, Specialized high schools in New York City, specialized high school in Manhattan, New York City. The school, commonly called "Stuy" ( ) by its students, faculty, a ...

(

New York City New York, often called New York City (NYC), is the most populous city in the United States, located at the southern tip of New York State on one of the world's largest natural harbors. The city comprises five boroughs, each coextensive w ...

) in 1962; earned a

Bachelor of Science A Bachelor of Science (BS, BSc, B.S., B.Sc., SB, or ScB; from the Latin ') is a bachelor's degree that is awarded for programs that generally last three to five years. The first university to admit a student to the degree of Bachelor of Scienc ...

degree in

Engineering Science Engineering physics (EP), sometimes engineering science, is the field of study combining pure science disciplines (such as physics, mathematics, chemistry or biology) and engineering disciplines (computer, nuclear, electrical, aerospace, medica ...

from the

United States Air Force Academy The United States Air Force Academy (USAFA) is a United States service academies, United States service academy in Air Force Academy, Colorado, Air Force Academy Colorado, immediately north of Colorado Springs, Colorado, Colorado Springs. I ...

in 1966; and studied

Aeronautics Aeronautics is the science or art involved with the study, design process, design, and manufacturing of air flight-capable machines, and the techniques of operating aircraft and rockets within the atmosphere. While the term originally referred ...

as a

Fulbright Scholar The Fulbright Program, including the Fulbright–Hays Program, is one of several United States cultural exchange programs with the goal of improving intercultural relations, cultural diplomacy, and intercultural competence between the peopl ...

at the

Technische Hochschule A ''Technische Hochschule'' (, plural: ''Technische Hochschulen'', abbreviated ''TH'') is a type of university focusing on engineering sciences in Germany. Previously, it also existed in Austria, Switzerland, the Netherlands (), and Finland (, ) ...

(

Darmstadt Darmstadt () is a city in the States of Germany, state of Hesse in Germany, located in the southern part of the Frankfurt Rhine Main Area, Rhine-Main-Area (Frankfurt Metropolitan Region). Darmstadt has around 160,000 inhabitants, making it the ...

West Germany West Germany was the common English name for the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG) from its formation on 23 May 1949 until German reunification, its reunification with East Germany on 3 October 1990. It is sometimes known as the Bonn Republi ...

) in 1967. He returned to the United States in 1967 to complete pilot training at

Randolph Air Force Base Randolph Air Force Base is a United States Air Force base located in Bexar County, Texas, ( east-northeast of Downtown San Antonio). Opened in 1931, Randolph has been a flying training facility for the United States Army Air Corps, the United ...

Texas Texas ( , ; or ) is the most populous U.S. state, state in the South Central United States, South Central region of the United States. It borders Louisiana to the east, Arkansas to the northeast, Oklahoma to the north, New Mexico to the we ...

. He subsequently flew F-100 aircraft with the

27th Tactical Fighter Wing The 27th Special Operations Wing, also known as "The Steadfast Line", is a wing of the United States Air Force stationed at Cannon Air Force Base, New Mexico. It is assigned to the Air Force Special Operations Command (AFSOC). The wing mission ...

Cannon Air Force Base Cannon Air Force Base is a United States Air Force base, located approximately southwest of Clovis, New Mexico. The host unit at Cannon is the 27th Special Operations Wing (27 SOW) also known as "The Steadfast Line". It is under the jurisdi ...

New Mexico New Mexico is a state in the Southwestern United States, Southwestern region of the United States. It is one of the Mountain States of the southern Rocky Mountains, sharing the Four Corners region with Utah, Colorado, and Arizona. It also ...

, and in 1969 was assigned as an F-100 pilot with the

3d Tactical Fighter Wing The 3rd Wing is a unit of the United States Air Force, assigned to the Pacific Air Forces (PACAF) Eleventh Air Force. It is stationed at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson, Alaska. The Wing is the largest and principal unit within 11th Air For ...

Bien Hoa Air Base Bien Hoa Air Base (Vietnamese language, Vietnamese: ''Sân bay Biên Hòa'') is a Vietnam People's Air Force (VPAF) military airfield located in South-Central southern Vietnam about from Ho Chi Minh City, across the Dong Nai river in the norther ...

in the

Republic of Vietnam South Vietnam, officially the Republic of Vietnam (RVN; , VNCH), was a country in Southeast Asia that existed from 1955 to 1975. It first garnered international recognition in 1949 as the State of Vietnam within the French Union, with it ...

, where he flew 200

combat mission ''Combat Mission'' is a series of computer wargames simulating tactical battles. The series has progressed through two distinct game engines. The original game engine, referred to as 'CMx1' by the developer, Battlefront.com, powered a trio of g ...

s. In 1970, he was reassigned to the 27th Tactical Fighter Wing at Cannon Air Force Base to fly F-100 and

F-111 The General Dynamics F-111 Aardvark is a retired supersonic, medium-range, multirole combat aircraft. Production models of the F-111 had roles that included attack (e.g. interdiction), strategic bombing (including nuclear weapons capabilit ...

aircraft. He participated in the operational test and evaluation of the weapons system of the

F-111D The General Dynamics F-111 Aardvark is a retired supersonic, medium-range, multirole combat aircraft. Production models of the F-111 had roles that included attack (e.g. interdiction), strategic bombing (including nuclear weapons capabilitie ...

aircraft. Grabe attended the

USAF Test Pilot School The U.S. Air Force Test Pilot School (USAF TPS) is the Air Force's advanced flight training school that trains experimental test pilots, flight test engineers, and flight test navigators to carry out tests and evaluations of new aerospace wea ...

in 1974 and, upon graduating in 1975, was assigned to the Air Force Flight Test Center as a test pilot for the A-7 and F-111. He was the program manager and chief project pilot for the Air Force's digital flight control system for tactical fighters (DIGITAC) evaluation. He later served as an exchange test pilot with the

Royal Air Force The Royal Air Force (RAF) is the Air force, air and space force of the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories and Crown Dependencies. It was formed towards the end of the World War I, First World War on 1 April 1918, on the merger of t ...

Boscombe Down MOD Boscombe Down ' is the home of a military aircraft testing site, on the south-eastern outskirts of the town of Amesbury, Wiltshire, England. The site is managed by QinetiQ, the private defence company created as part of the breakup of the D ...

, United Kingdom, from 1976 to 1979. During this tour of duty, he served as the chief project pilot for the Royal Air Force Harrier and the Royal Navy Sea Harrier. He was an instructor at the USAF Test Pilot School at

Edwards Air Force Base Edwards Air Force Base (AFB) is a United States Air Force installation in California. Most of the base sits in Kern County, California, Kern County, but its eastern end is in San Bernardino County, California, San Bernardino County and a souther ...

California California () is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States that lies on the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. It borders Oregon to the north, Nevada and Arizona to the east, and shares Mexico–United States border, an ...

, when advised of his selection by

. He has logged more than 5,500 hours flying time.

NASA experience

Grabe became a NASA astronaut in August 1981. He has served as a chief verification pilot for

STS-3 STS-3 was NASA's third Space Shuttle mission, and was the third mission for the Space Shuttle ''Columbia''. It launched on March 22, 1982, and landed eight days later on March 30, 1982. The mission, crewed by Jack R. Lousma and C. Gordon Fu ...

and

STS-4 STS-4 was the fourth NASA Space Shuttle mission, and also the fourth for Space Shuttle ''Columbia''. Crewed by Ken Mattingly and Henry Hartsfield, the mission launched on June 27, 1982, and landed a week later on July 4, 1982. Due to parachut ...

entry guidance, navigation and control simulation testing; as the Deputy Manager for Operations Integration, Space Shuttle Program Office; and subsequently as the Chief of Training within the

Astronaut Office The NASA Astronaut Corps is a unit of the United States National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) that selects, trains, and provides astronauts as crew members for U.S. and international space missions. It is based at Johnson Space Ce ...

. A veteran of four space flights, Grabe served as pilot on

STS-51-J STS-51-J was NASA's 21st Space Shuttle mission and the maiden flight of Space Shuttle ''Atlantis''. It launched from Kennedy Space Center, Florida, on October 3, 1985, carrying a payload for the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD), and landed at ...

(October 3–7, 1985) and

STS-30 STS-30 was the 29th NASA Space Shuttle mission and the fourth mission for Space Shuttle ''Atlantis''. It was the fourth shuttle launch since the Challenger disaster and the first shuttle mission since the disaster to have a female astronaut on ...

(May 4–8, 1989), and was the mission commander on

STS-42 STS-42 was a NASA Space Shuttle Space Shuttle Discovery, ''Discovery'' mission with the Spacelab module. Liftoff was originally scheduled for 8:45 Eastern Time Zone, EST (13:45 Coordinated Universal Time, UTC) on January 22, 1992, but the launc ...

(January 22–30, 1992) and

STS-57 STS-57 was a NASA Space Shuttle- Spacehab mission of that launched June 21, 1993, from Kennedy Space Center, Florida. Crew Spacewalk * Personnel: Low and Wisoff * Date: June 25, 1993 (13:07–18:57 UTC) * Duration: 5 hours and 50&n ...

(June 21 to July 1, 1993). Grabe has logged over 627 hours in

space Space is a three-dimensional continuum containing positions and directions. In classical physics, physical space is often conceived in three linear dimensions. Modern physicists usually consider it, with time, to be part of a boundless ...

. Effective April 11, 1994, Grabe left NASA and the Air Force to join Orbital Sciences Corporation,

Dulles, Virginia Dulles ( ) is an unincorporated area in Loudoun County, Virginia, United States, and is part of the Washington metropolitan area. The headquarters of Northrop Grumman Innovation Systems and ODIN Technologies, as well as the former headquarters ...

Space flight experience

, the second Space Shuttle

Department of Defense The United States Department of Defense (DoD, USDOD, or DOD) is an executive department of the U.S. federal government charged with coordinating and supervising the six U.S. armed services: the Army, Navy, Marines, Air Force, Space Force, ...

mission, launched from Kennedy Space Center, Florida, on October 3, 1985. This was the maiden voyage of the Atlantis, the final Orbiter in the Shuttle fleet. After 98 hours of orbital operations, Atlantis landed at Edwards Air Force Base, California, on October 7, 1985. Mission duration was 97 hours, 14 minutes, 38 seconds.

Atlantis launched from

Kennedy Space Center The John F. Kennedy Space Center (KSC, originally known as the NASA Launch Operations Center), located on Merritt Island, Florida, is one of the NASA, National Aeronautics and Space Administration's (NASA) ten NASA facilities#List of field c ...

, Florida, on May 4, 1989. During the four-day mission, the crew successfully deployed the

Magellan Ferdinand Magellan ( – 27 April 1521) was a Portuguese people, Portuguese explorer best known for having planned and led the Magellan expedition, 1519–22 Spanish expedition to the East Indies. During this expedition, he also discovered t ...

Venus-exploration spacecraft, the first U.S. planetary science mission launched since 1978, and the first planetary probe to be deployed from the Shuttle. Magellan arrived at

Venus Venus is the second planet from the Sun. It is often called Earth's "twin" or "sister" planet for having almost the same size and mass, and the closest orbit to Earth's. While both are rocky planets, Venus has an atmosphere much thicker ...

in mid-1990, and mapped over 95% of the surface of Venus. Magellan has been one of NASA's most successful scientific missions and continues to operate today gaining information about the Venetian atmosphere and magnetic field. In addition, crew members also worked on secondary payloads involving fluid research in general, chemistry, and electrical storm studies. Following 64 orbits of the Earth, the STS-30 mission concluded with a landing at Edwards Air Force Base, California, on May 8, 1989. Mission duration was 96 hours, 57 minutes, 35 seconds.

Discovery launched from the Kennedy Space Center, Florida, on January 22, 1992. Fifty-five major experiments conducted in the International Microgravity Laboratory-1 module were provided by investigators from eleven countries, and represented a broad spectrum of scientific disciplines. During 128 orbits of the Earth, the seven-person crew accomplished the mission's primary objective of investigating the effects of

microgravity Weightlessness is the complete or near-complete absence of the sensation of weight, i.e., zero apparent weight. It is also termed zero g-force, or zero-g (named after the g-force) or, incorrectly, zero gravity. Weight is a measurement of the fo ...

on materials processing and life sciences. In this unique laboratory in space, the crew worked around-the-clock in two shifts. Experiments investigated the microgravity effects on the growth of protein and semiconductor crystals. Biological experiments on the effects of zero gravity on

plants Plants are the eukaryotes that form the kingdom Plantae; they are predominantly photosynthetic. This means that they obtain their energy from sunlight, using chloroplasts derived from endosymbiosis with cyanobacteria to produce sugars f ...

, tissues,

bacteria Bacteria (; : bacterium) are ubiquitous, mostly free-living organisms often consisting of one Cell (biology), biological cell. They constitute a large domain (biology), domain of Prokaryote, prokaryotic microorganisms. Typically a few micr ...

insects Insects (from Latin ') are hexapod invertebrates of the class Insecta. They are the largest group within the arthropod phylum. Insects have a chitinous exoskeleton, a three-part body (head, thorax and abdomen), three pairs of jointed ...

and human vestibular response were also conducted. This eight-day mission culminated in a landing at Edwards Air Force Base, California, on January 30, 1992. Mission duration was 193 hours, 14 minutes, 45 seconds.

Endeavour launched from the Kennedy Space Center, Florida, on June 21, 1993. The primary mission of this flight was the retrieval of the European Retrievable Carrier satellite (EURECA). Additionally, STS-57 featured the first flight of the Spacehab, a commercially provided middeck augmentation module for the conduct of microgravity experiments. Spacehab carried 22 individual flight experiments in materials processing and human factors. A spacewalk was conducted on this flight as part of an ongoing program to evaluate extravehicular activity (EVA) techniques for future missions. The Space Shuttle Endeavour landed at the Kennedy Space Center on July 1, 1993, after 10 days on orbit. Mission duration was 239 hours, 45 minutes. He is married to the former Lynn O'Keefe of Ottawa, Canada. Ron has two daughters and he and Lynn have a son. Recreational interests include skiing, wind surfing, and racquet sports.

References

*
Spacefacts biography of Ronald J. Grabe
{{DEFAULTSORT:Grabe, Ronald J. 1945 births Living people Stuyvesant High School alumni United States Air Force Academy alumni United States Air Force colonels United States Air Force personnel of the Vietnam War U.S. Air Force Test Pilot School alumni Recipients of the Distinguished Flying Cross (United States) United States Air Force astronauts Recipients of the Air Medal Recipients of the Air Force Cross (United Kingdom) Recipients of the NASA Exceptional Service Medal Space Shuttle program astronauts Technische Universität Darmstadt alumni