Daniel W. Bursch

Did You Know?

• Bursch graduated from Vestal Senior High School in Vestal, New York, in 1975.
• Bursch logged 11 hours and 48 minutes of EVA time in two separate spacewalks wearing the Russian Orlan spacesuit during Expedition 4.

Navy career

Daniel W. Bursch graduated from the U.S. Naval Academy in 1979 and was designated a Naval Flight Officer in April 1980 at Naval Air Station Pensacola, Florida. After initial training as an A-6E Intruder bombardier/navigator, he reported to VA-34 in January 1981, and deployed to the Mediterranean aboard the aircraft carrier USS John F. Kennedy CV-67, and to the North Atlantic and Indian Oceans aboard USS America CV-66. He attended the U.S. Naval Test Pilot School in January 1984.

Upon graduation in December he worked as a project test flight officer flying the A-6 Intruder until August 1984, when he returned to the U.S. Naval Test Pilot School as a flight instructor. In April 1987, Bursch was assigned to the commander, Cruiser-Destroyer Group 1, as strike operations officer, making deployments to the Indian Ocean aboard the cruiser USS Long Beach CGN-9 and the carrier USS Midway CV-41. Redesignated an Aeronautical Engineering Duty officer, he attended the U.S. Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, California, from July 1989 until his selection to the astronaut program. He has flown over 3,430 flight hours in more than 35 different aircraft.

Astronaut career

Selected by NASA in January 1990, Bursch became an astronaut in July 1991. His technical assignments included working on controls and displays for the Space Shuttle and Space Station, serving as Chief of Astronaut Appearances, and acting as spacecraft communicator in mission control. A veteran of four space flights, Bursch logged over 227 days in space. He was a mission specialist on STS-51 (1993), STS-68 (1994) and STS-77 (1996), and served as flight engineer on International Space Station Expedition 4 (2001–2002).

Dan Bursch and fellow astronaut Carl Walz completed one of the longest U.S. space flights of 196 days in space. In January 2003, Bursch reported to the Naval Postgraduate School for a two-year assignment as an instructor in the Space Systems Academic Group. He left NASA in May 2005 and later retired from active duty in July 2005 after 26 years of service in the U.S. Navy. Bursch joined The Aerospace Corporation in July 2005 and is currently serving as the National Reconnaissance Office Chair at the Naval Postgraduate School.

He is also a member of the Board of Directors at the McAuliffe-Shepard Discovery Center. On STS-51, the crew of five deployed the U.S. Advanced Communications Technology Satellite and the Shuttle Pallet Satellite with NASA and German scientific experiments. Following a spacewalk by two crew members to evaluate Hubble Space Telescope repair tools, Bursch recovered the SPAS using the Remote Manipulator System. The mission concluded on September 22, 1993, with the first night landing at the Kennedy Space Center.

Mission duration was 236 hours and 11 minutes. On STS-68, Space Radar Lab-2 launched on September 30, 1994, as part of NASA's Mission to Planet Earth. The eleven-day mission ended with Space Shuttle Endeavour landing at Edwards Air Force Base, California, on October 11, 1994. Mission duration was 269 hours and 46 minutes.

On STS-77, launched on May 19, 1996, the ten-day mission ended with Space Shuttle Endeavour landing at the Kennedy Space Center on May 29, 1996. Mission duration was 240 hours and 39 minutes. The Expedition 4 crew launched on December 5, 2001 aboard STS-108 and docked with the International Space Station on December 7, 2001. During a 6½ month stay, the crew of three performed flight tests of station hardware, conducted internal and external maintenance tasks, and developed the capability of the station to support science experiments.

Wearing the Russian Orlan spacesuit, Bursch logged 11 hours and 48 minutes of EVA time in two separate spacewalks. The crew returned to Earth aboard STS-111, with Endeavour landing at Edwards Air Force Base, California, on June 19, 2002.