Owen Garriott
| Owen Garriott | |
|---|---|
| Full name | Owen K. Garriott |
| Born | November 22, 1930, Enid, Oklahoma |
| Died | April 15, 2019, Huntsville, Alabama |
| Occupation | Electrical engineer, NASA scientist-astronaut |
| Spaceflights | |
| Skylab 3 | July 28 to September 25, 1973 |
| STS-9 (Spacelab 1) | November 28 to December 8, 1983 |
| Call sign | W5LFL |
| Known for | First amateur radio operation from space, 1983 |
| Amateur radio | |
| Radio used | 5-watt 2-meter FM handheld |
| First contact | Lance Collister, WA1JXN, in Montana |
Owen Garriott (1930–2019), call sign W5LFL, was an American electrical engineer and NASA astronaut who flew on Skylab in 1973 and on the Space Shuttle in 1983. On the shuttle flight he made the first amateur radio contacts from space, using a small handheld radio.[1] His experiment grew into the regular ham radio programs flown on later shuttles, the Russian space station Mir and today's International Space Station.[2]
Engineer and astronaut
Garriott was born in Enid, Oklahoma, on November 22, 1930.[2] He earned a bachelor's degree in electrical engineering from the University of Oklahoma in 1953 and served as an electronics officer in the US Navy from 1953 to 1956.[2] He then went to Stanford University, where he earned a master's degree in 1957 and a doctorate in electrical engineering in 1960, and taught there until 1965, doing research on the physics of the ionosphere, the layer of the upper atmosphere that makes long-distance HF radio possible.[2]
In 1965 NASA chose him as one of its first six scientist-astronauts.[2] He first flew on Skylab 3, the second crew to live aboard the Skylab space station, from July 28 to September 25, 1973.[1] The crew of three set a record of about 60 days in space, and Garriott made three spacewalks totaling 13 hours and 43 minutes.[2][1]
W5LFL on Columbia
The idea of ham radio from space was older than the flight that made it happen: a NASA engineer and ham, Richard Fenner, had first suggested it for Skylab 3 in 1973.[3] NASA approved amateur operation in April 1983, after a proposal from the ARRL and AMSAT.[3]
Garriott's second flight was STS-9, the Space Shuttle Columbia mission that carried the first Spacelab laboratory. It launched on November 28, 1983, and landed on December 8.[4] Garriott used a 5-watt handheld transceiver for the 2-meter band, specified by the Johnson Space Center amateur radio club and built by the ham club at a Motorola plant in Fort Lauderdale, Florida,[3] with a makeshift antenna taped to the inside of one of the shuttle's windows.[5] Listeners on the ground could hear him on 145.55 MHz FM as the shuttle passed overhead.[3]
His first pass was over the West Coast of the United States, and his first contact was with Lance Collister, WA1JXN, in Montana.[6][7] Garriott worked stations around the world, including King Hussein of Jordan, JY1, and Senator Barry Goldwater, K7UGA.[6]
Legacy
Garriott's success led to SAREX, the Shuttle Amateur Radio Experiment, which put hams on dozens of later shuttle flights, and crews of the Russian space station Mir also operated ham radio.[8] SAREX was followed by ARISS (Amateur Radio on the International Space Station), which arranges radio contacts between astronauts and students around the world.[5][9] See Amateur satellites for how to listen to the space station today.
In 2008 his son, Richard Garriott, W5KWQ, flew to the International Space Station as a private space traveler and operated ham radio there, making Owen and Richard the first American father and son to make ham radio contacts from space.[7]
After leaving NASA in 1986, Garriott worked in industry, serving as vice president of space programs at Teledyne Brown Engineering from 1988 to 1993,[2] and later did research in microbiology as an adjunct professor at the University of Alabama in Huntsville.[2] He died at his home in Huntsville on April 15, 2019, at the age of 88.[7]
See also
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 Garriott, Owen K. (1930–2019), Oklahoma Historical Society.
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 2.5 2.6 2.7 Owen K. Garriott biography, NASA.
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 You, too, may speak with an astronaut, Christian Science Monitor, December 1983.
- ↑ STS-9, NASA.
- ↑ 5.0 5.1 NASA's Space Shuttle Program to Come to an End, ARRL News, July 2011.
- ↑ 6.0 6.1 W5LFL talks to the world, Worldradio, February 1984.
- ↑ 7.0 7.1 7.2 First Ham in Space, AMSAT Life Member, Owen Garriott, W5LFL, SK, AMSAT, April 2019.
- ↑ AMSAT News Service bulletin ANS-333, AMSAT, November 1998.
- ↑ ARISS History, ARISS.