Pictured is the vehicle containing the Air Test Booster (Northrop Grumman) and the NASA Orion Capsule inside the Air Abort Test System (Lockheed Martin) on Launch Pad 46, Cape Canaveral, Fla. The launch will be the topic of a presentation to the Sun Lakes Aero Club gathering on April 20. Photo by Fred Bookwalter.
Gary Vacin
A mission that qualified NASA to carry a man into space will be the topic of a presentation at the Sun Lakes Aero Club gathering on Monday, April 20, at the Cottonwood Country Club Lecture Hall. Camaraderie starts at 6:30 p.m., followed by the presentation, which begins at 7 p.m. The public is invited to attend.
The speaker will be Fred Bookwalter who was selected by NASA to be Launch Pad Safety Officer for the mission. Although the mission was conducted in July of 2019, the topic is timely, because the mission was a precursor to the next NASA manned mission to the moon.
NASA has scheduled its first crewed lunar mission in over 50 years for later this month. That mission will send four astronauts on a 10-day flyby around the moon to test systems before the first crewed lunar landing, now scheduled for 2027.
Following Bookwalter’s retirement after 20 years in the U.S. Air Force, he began a new career in various aspects of safety. Included were stops working for Intel at Arizona, the USA Yuma Proving Ground, the Redstone Test Center in Huntsville, and Orbital, which was eventually purchased by Northrop Grumman in 2018.
Later that year, he was selected to be Launch Pad Safety Director during the launch campaign for the Orion Air Support Test II at the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Fla. He considers this event to be the pinnacle of his career.
His presentation at the Aero Club gathering will detail his perception of the launch campaign, illustrated by videos and multiple slides. The mission tested the space capsule’s launch abort system to very quickly get astronauts safely away from their launch vehicle if there was a problem during ascent.
The April 20 gathering will be the last of the Aero Club’s monthly get-togethers for the 2025-26 season. The year’s activities will conclude with a field trip to Pitts Flying Museum at Pegasus Airport in Queen Creek and a picnic later this month. Regular November through April gatherings will begin again on Nov. 16, with speakers to be announced in future issues of the Splash.
More information on the Aero Club is available from Cannon Hill at 509-539-7857, Gary Vacin at 480-298-7017, or at the club’s website at www.sunlakesaeroclub.org.