Joe Henry Engle (August 26, 1932 – July 10, 2024) was an American pilot, aeronautical engineer, and NASAastronaut. He was the commander of two Space Shuttle missions including STS-2 in 1981, the program's second orbital flight. He also flew two flights in the Shuttle program's 1977 Approach and Landing Tests. Engle was one of twelve pilots who flew the North American X-15, an experimental spaceplane jointly operated by the Air Force and NASA.
As an X-15 pilot, Engle made three flights above 50 miles, thus qualifying for astronaut wings under the American convention for the boundary of space. In 1966 he was selected for NASA's 5th Astronaut Group, joining the Apollo program. He was backup Lunar Module Pilot (LMP) for Apollo 14 and was originally scheduled to walk on the Moon as LMP for Apollo 17. However, cancellation of later flights prompted NASA to select geologist-astronaut Harrison Schmitt as the Lunar Module Pilot, displacing Engle.
Engle died at his home in Houston, Texas on July 10, 2024, at the age of 91.[10][11] With Engle's death, all 12 pilots to fly the X-15 are now deceased.[12]
Engle's parents witnessed his X-15 flight of June 29, 1965, which exceeded an altitude of 50 miles (80 km) and qualified him for astronaut wings; he again exceeded 50 miles twice during his career of 16 flights.[14] On his final X-15 mission, free flight 153 (1-61-101), which took place on October 14, 1965, he became the first of only two pilots to accomplish a sub-orbital space flight in an X-15 without the benefit of the assistance provided by the MH-96 adaptive flight control system.[15] Despite what he later called "the best flying job in the world", Engle decided to apply again to NASA as he expected to be rotated to another Air Force assignment within a year and hoped to go to the Moon.[14]
Engle flew over 185 different types of aircraft (25 different fighters) during his career, logging more than 15,400 hours flight time of which 9,000 were in jet aircraft.[1]
Engle, commander of the STS-2 mission, with Truly, pilot
Engle was one of 19 astronauts selected by NASA in April 1966.[16] He served on the support crew for Apollo 10. He then served as backup Lunar Module Pilot for the Apollo 14 mission. He was due to land on the Moon as Lunar Module Pilot for Apollo 17, but was replaced by geologist Harrison Schmitt. This was a result of pressure from the scientific community to have a professional geologist explore the Moon, and not just test pilot engineers who had been given rudimentary geology training. In response to getting bumped from the mission, he said "When you think about it, the lunar missions were geology-oriented."[8]
According to Engle, Deke Slayton asked him whether he would prefer to fly on Skylab, Apollo–Soyuz, or the Space Shuttle; Engle responded that he would prefer the Shuttle as it was an airplane.[14]
Joe Engle flew two missions as Space Shuttle commander.The crew of the STS-51-I mission. Engle is at the lower left.Major General Joe Engle with fellow astronaut General Kevin P. Chilton
Engle was commander of one of the two crews that flew the Space Shuttle Approach and Landing Test Flights from June through October 1977. The Space Shuttle Enterprise was carried to 25,000 feet on top of the Boeing 747 carrier aircraft, and then released for its two-minute glide flight to landing. In this series of flight tests, Engle evaluated the Orbiter handling qualities and landing characteristics, and obtained the stability and control, and performance data in the subsonic flight envelope for the Space Shuttle. He was the backup commander for STS-1, the first orbital test flight of Space Shuttle Columbia. Together with pilot Richard Truly he flew as commander on the second flight of the Space Shuttle, STS-2, becoming the last NASA rookie to command a spaceflight until Raja Chari in 2021 on SpaceX Crew-3. He was also mission commander on STS-51-I and logged over 225 hours in space.[14]
Engle was one of two people to have flown into space on two different types of winged vehicles: the X-15 and the Space Shuttle, on STS-2 (the other person being Frederick W. Sturckow). 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.[14][17]
He served as deputy associate administrator for manned space flight at NASA Headquarters from March to December 1982.[1] He retained his astronaut flight status and returned to Johnson Space Center in January 1983.[1] He also participated in the Challenger disaster investigation in 1986, and did other consulting work on the Shuttle well into the 1990s.[18]
^ abcdefgh"Joe H. Engle Oral History Interviews". Johnson Space Center Oral History Project. Houston: National Aeronautical and Space Administration. 2004. Archived from the original on June 19, 2024. Retrieved July 11, 2024.
^Thompson, Ronald (April 5, 1966). "19 New Spacemen Are Named". The High Point Enterprise. High Point, North Carolina. p. 2A. Archived from the original on April 11, 2019. Retrieved February 10, 2019 – via Newspapers.com.
^Jenkins, Dennis R. (2017). Space Shuttle: Developing an Icon 1972–2013. Speciality Press. ISBN978-1580072496.
^"Engle, Joe Henry". The National Aviation Hall of Fame. Archived from the original on December 3, 2017. Retrieved December 1, 2017.
^"Veteran Astronaut Resigns". Anderson Independent-Mail. Associated Press. December 3, 1986. p. 11. Archived from the original on July 11, 2024. Retrieved July 12, 2024.
^ abcdefghShayler, David; Burgess, Colin (2017). The Last of NASA's Original Pilot Astronauts: Expanding the Space Frontier in the Late Sixties. Springer. p. 372. ISBN978-3319510149.
^"Walk of Honor". City of Lancaster. Archived from the original on December 2, 2017. Retrieved December 1, 2017.
^Halley, Blaine (September 19, 1992). "Ceremony Will Honor 5 Test Pilots". The Los Angeles Times. Los Angeles, California. p. B2. Archived from the original on September 24, 2019. Retrieved September 24, 2019 – via Newspapers.com.
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