page_title: Richard Hieb
section_title: NASA career
hierarchical_section_title: Richard Hieb / NASA career
caption_attribution_description: English: Three crewmembers of mission STS-49 hold onto the 4.5 ton International Telecommunications Organization Satellite (INTELSAT) VI after a six-handed "capture" was made minutes earlier during the mission's third extravehicular activity (EVA). From left to right: Mission Specialists(MS) Richard J. Hieb, Thomas D. Akers, and Pierre J. Thuot. The three prepare to attach the capture bar which is tethered to Hieb. Thuot is positioned on the Remote Manipulator System (RMS) arm, from which he had made two earlier unsuccessful grapple attempts on two-person EVA sessions. Ground controllers and crewmembers agreed that a third attempt, using three mission specialists in the payload bay (PLB) was the effort needed to accomplish the capture feat. It worked, and to date, this remains the only three-person EVA. Behind the three astronauts is the vertical perigee stage which will be attached to the Intelsat VI prior to its release from the PLB.
context_page_description: Richard James Hieb is a former NASA astronaut and a veteran of three space shuttle missions. He was a mission specialist on STS-39 and STS-49, and was a payload commander on STS-65. After leaving NASA he worked at AlliedSignal and Orbital before spending 14 years as an executive at Lockheed Martin. He is currently a faculty member in the University of Colorado Boulder Smead Aerospace Engineering Sciences Department.
context_section_description: Upon graduation from CU/Boulder, Hieb went to NASA/JSC to work in crew procedures development and crew activity planning. He worked in the Mission Control Center on the ascent team for STS-1, and during rendezvous phases on numerous subsequent flights. He has an extensive background in on-orbit procedures development, particularly in rendezvous and proximity operations. Selected by NASA as an astronaut candidate in June 1985, Hieb qualified July 1986 for assignment as a mission specialist on future Space Shuttle flight crews. A veteran of three space flights, Hieb flew on STS-39 in 1991, STS-49 in 1992, and STS-65 in 1994. He logged over 750 hours in space, including over 17 hours of EVA (space walk), traveling over 13 million miles.
  Hieb first flew on the crew of STS-39, an unclassified Department of Defense mission which launched on April 28, 1991 from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. During the mission, he was responsible for operating the Infrared Background Signature Satellite from within the payload bay, on the Remote Manipulator System and as a free-flying satellite. He also operated the remote system to release the satellite, and then to retrieve the satellite a day and a half later. After 134 orbits of the Earth which covered 3.5 million miles (5,600,000 km) and lasted just over 199 hours, the crew landed at California, on May 6, 1991.
  Hieb was also a mission specialist on the crew of STS-49, the maiden voyage of the new Space Shuttle Endeavour, which launched from the Kennedy Space Center on May 7, 1992. During that mission, Hieb along with astronaut Pierre Thuot, performed three space walks which resulted in the capture and repair of the stranded Intelsat VI F3 communications satellite. The third space walk, which also included astronaut Tom Akers, was the first ever (and to date only) three-person space walk. This 8 hour and 29 minute space walk, the longest in history, broke a twenty-year-old record that was held by Apollo 17 astronauts.  The STS-49 record endured for 9 years until being surpassed by James Voss and Susan Helms on the International Space Station, and now stands in second place for EVA duration. The mission concluded on May 16, 1992 with a landing at Edwards Air Force Base after orbiting the Earth 141 times in 213 hours and traveling 3.7 million miles (5.9 million kilometres).
  Hieb was the payload commander on the second flight of the International Microgravity Laboratory on Space Shuttle Mission STS-65. The mission launched from Kennedy Space Center in Florida on July 8, 1994, and returned there on July 23, 1994, setting a new flight duration record for the Space Shuttle program. During the 15-day flight the crew conducted more than 80 experiments focusing on materials and life sciences research in microgravity. The mission was accomplished in 236 orbits of the Earth, traveling 6.1 million miles (9.8 million kilometres).
caption: The STS-49 three-person EVA. Left to right: Hieb, Thomas Akers, Pierre J. Thuot.
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