Ken Mattingly

Ken Mattingly
Mattingly in 1971
Born
Thomas Kenneth Mattingly II

(1936-03-17)March 17, 1936
DiedOctober 31, 2023(2023-10-31) (aged 87)
EducationAuburn University (BS)
Spouse
Elizabeth Dailey
(m. 1970)
Children1
AwardsNASA Distinguished Service Medal
Space career
NASA astronaut
RankRear Admiral, USN
Time in space
21d 4h 34m
SelectionNASA Group 5 (1966)
Total EVAs
1
Total EVA time
1h 23m
Missions
Mission insignia
RetirementJune 1985

Thomas Kenneth Mattingly II (March 17, 1936 – October 31, 2023) was an American aviator, aeronautical engineer, test pilot, rear admiral in the United States Navy, and astronaut who flew on Apollo 16 and Space Shuttle STS-4 and STS-51-C missions.

Mattingly was scheduled to fly on the Apollo 13 mission, but three days before launch, he was replaced by Jack Swigert because he was exposed to German measles (which Mattingly did not contract). Mattingly flew as Command Module Pilot for Apollo 16 and made 64 lunar orbits,[1] making him one of 24 people to fly to the Moon.[2] Mattingly and his Apollo 16 commander, John Young, are the only people to have flown to the Moon and also a Space Shuttle mission. (Fred Haise, Mattingly's originally scheduled crewmate for Apollo 13, performed atmospheric flight testing of the Space Shuttle Approach and Landing Tests.)

During Apollo 16's return flight to Earth, Mattingly performed an extravehicular activity (EVA) to retrieve film cassettes from the exterior of the spacecraft, the command and service module. It was the second "deep space" EVA in history, at great distance from any planetary body. As of 2023, it remains one of only three such EVAs which have taken place, all during the Apollo program's J-missions.[3]

  1. ^ NASA Apollo 16 summary page
  2. ^ "Astronaut Bio: Thomas K. Mattingly II" (PDF). NASA. January 1987. Retrieved April 14, 2021. Public Domain This article incorporates text from this source, which is in the public domain.
  3. ^ LePage, Andrew (December 17, 2017). "A History of Deep Space EVAs". drewexmachina.