X-Nico

unusual facts about Payload Specialist


Luca Urbani

Following candidature by the Italian Space Agency, Urbani was selected by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) in May 1995 as an alternate Payload Specialist for the Life and Microgravity Spacelab (LMS) mission, STS-78, and began training for the flight duties of a Payload Specialist Astronaut at the Johnson Space Center in Houston.


Loren Acton

Loren Wilber Acton (born March 7, 1936) is an American physicist who flew on Space Shuttle mission STS-51-F as a Payload Specialist for the Lockheed Palo Alto Research Laboratory.


see also

Gerhard Thiele

During the mission, which took part in April 1993, he worked in the Payload Operations Control Center of DLR at Oberpfaffenhofen as the alternate payload specialist.

Italian Space Agency

Umberto Guidoni, flew on STS-75 (February 22 to March 9, 1996) as payload specialist on the second Tethered Satellite System mission - TSS-1R.