Taufik Akbar (born 8 January 1951 in

Medan Medan ( , ) is the capital city, capital and largest city of the Indonesian Provinces of Indonesia, province of North Sumatra. The nearby Strait of Malacca, Port of Belawan, and Kualanamu International Airport make Medan a regional hub and multi ...

) is an Indonesian

engineer Engineers, as practitioners of engineering, are professionals who Invention, invent, design, build, maintain and test machines, complex systems, structures, gadgets and materials. They aim to fulfill functional objectives and requirements while ...

and former

astronaut An astronaut (from the Ancient Greek (), meaning 'star', and (), meaning 'sailor') is a person trained, equipped, and deployed by a List of human spaceflight programs, human spaceflight program to serve as a commander or crew member of a spa ...

candidate. After graduating at the

Bandung Institute of Technology The Bandung Institute of Technology (; , abbreviated as ITB) is a public research university located in Bandung, Indonesia. It has produced many notable leaders in science, engineering, politics, business, academia, and culture. ITB is one of th ...

with 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 ...

in Electrical Engineering in 1975, he worked as a telecommunication engineer. While working for Telkom in the development of the

Palapa Palapa is a series of communications satellites owned by Indosat, an Indonesian telecommunications company (formerly by Telkom Indonesia, Perumtel and then by PT Satelit Palapa Indonesia/Satelindo). The first satellite was launched in July 197 ...

telecommunication satellite system, he was selected to take part in the Space Shuttle mission

STS-61-H STS-61-H was a NASA Space Shuttle mission planned to launch on 24 June 1986 using ''Columbia''. However, it was canceled after the ''Challenger'' disaster. Crew Backup crew Crew notes Before Buchli was assigned to STS-61-H, Norman ...

as a

Payload Specialist A payload specialist (PS) was an individual selected and trained by commercial or research organizations for flights of a specific payload on a NASA Space Shuttle mission. People assigned as payload specialists included individuals selected by t ...

in October 1985. While Pratiwi Sudarmono was chosen to be in the flight crew, he was supposed to be her backup on the mission. However, after the

Challenger disaster On January 28, 1986, the Space Shuttle ''Challenger'' broke apart 73 seconds into its flight, killing all seven crew members aboard. The spacecraft disintegrated above the Atlantic Ocean, off the coast of Cape Canaveral, Florida, at 16:3 ...

the deployment of commercial satellites like the Indonesian Palapa B-3 planned for that mission was canceled, thus the mission never took place. The satellite was later launched with a

Delta rocket The Delta rocket family was a versatile range of American rocket-powered expendable launch systems that provided space launch capability in the United States from 1960 to 2024. Japan also launched license-built derivatives (N-I (rocket), N-I, N ...

. After his astronaut career, he continued to work for Telkom. Within 1990-92, he was General Manager Telecommunication Planning, Executive General Manager for Palapa Satellites Operation (1992–1993), President Director of Aplikanusa Lintasarta (1994–2000). In 2000, he became Director of Human Resources for Sumber Daya Manusia Telkom.

References

NASA listing
(Page 61) * ''Jane's spaceflight directory'' By Reginald Turnill p364 * ''Space Shuttle Log'' By Tim Furniss p126 1986 1951 births Bandung Institute of Technology alumni Living people People from Medan {{astronaut-stub