1. Joe Henry Engle was an American pilot, aeronautical engineer, and NASA astronaut.
32 Facts About Joe Engle
2.
Joe Engle was the commander of two Space Shuttle missions including STS-2 in 1981, the program's second orbital flight.
3.
Joe Engle flew two flights in the Shuttle program's 1977 Approach and Landing Tests.
4.
Joe Engle was backup Lunar Module Pilot for Apollo 14 and was scheduled to walk on the Moon as LMP for Apollo 17.
5.
Joe Engle was born on August 26,1932, in Abilene, Kansas.
6.
Joe Engle was raised in Chapman, Kansas, where he attended primary and secondary school.
7.
Joe Engle was active as a Boy Scout and earned the rank of First Class.
8.
Joe Engle received a Bachelor of Science degree in Aerospace Engineering from the University of Kansas in 1955, where he was a member of the Theta Tau Professional Engineering Fraternity.
9.
Joe Engle was married to the former Mary Catherine Lawrence of Mission Hills, Kansas, and had two children and one stepchild.
10.
Joe Engle was a member of the Society of Experimental Test Pilots and became a Fellow in 2009.
11.
Joe Engle died at his home in Houston, Texas on July 10,2024, at the age of 91.
12.
Joe Engle received his commission in the US Air Force through the Air Force Reserve Officer Training Corps at the University of Kansas.
13.
Joe Engle entered flying school in 1957, and received his pilot wings in 1958.
14.
Joe Engle flew the F-100 Super Sabre with the 474th Fighter Day Squadron and the 309th Tactical Fighter Squadron at George Air Force Base, California.
15.
Joe Engle's parents witnessed his X-15 flight of June 29,1965, which exceeded an altitude of 50 miles and qualified him for astronaut wings; he again exceeded 50 miles twice during his career of 16 flights.
16.
Joe Engle flew over 185 different types of aircraft during his career, logging more than 15,400 hours flight time of which 9,000 were in jet aircraft.
17.
Joe Engle was one of 19 astronauts selected by NASA in April 1966.
18.
Joe Engle served on the support crew for Apollo 10.
19.
Joe Engle then served as backup Lunar Module Pilot for the Apollo 14 mission.
20.
Joe Engle was due to land on the Moon as Lunar Module Pilot for Apollo 17, but was replaced by geologist Harrison Schmitt.
21.
Joe Engle was commander of one of the two crews that flew the Space Shuttle Approach and Landing Test Flights from June through October 1977.
22.
Joe Engle was the backup commander for STS-1, the first orbital test flight of Space Shuttle Columbia.
23.
Joe Engle was mission commander on STS-51-I and logged over 225 hours in space.
24.
Joe Engle manually flew large numbers of flight-test maneuvers on the Shuttle during reentry and landing; periods of manually flown test maneuvers were interspersed with periods of computer control.
25.
Joe Engle served as deputy associate administrator for manned space flight at NASA Headquarters from March to December 1982.
26.
Joe Engle retained his astronaut flight status and returned to Johnson Space Center in January 1983.
27.
Joe Engle participated in the Challenger disaster investigation in 1986, and did other consulting work on the Shuttle well into the 1990s.
28.
Joe Engle retired from the USAF with the rank of colonel on November 14,1986, and from NASA on November 28,1986.
29.
Under this arrangement, Joe Engle was permitted to retain Houston residency.
30.
Joe Engle subsequently served as Air National Guard assistant to the commander in chief, United States Space Command and North American Air Defense Command, with headquarters at Peterson Air Force Base, Colorado.
31.
Joe Engle ultimately retired from the Air National Guard around 1991 at the rank of major general, a promotion previously confirmed by the Senate on June 22,1989.
32.
In 2001, Joe Engle was inducted into the National Aviation Hall of Fame and the US Astronaut Hall of Fame.