Posted: Thu, Aug 22, 2013, 7:54 AM ET (1154 GMT)
Gordon Fullerton, a former astronaut who flew on two shuttle missions as well as approach and landing tests of the shuttle, passed away Wednesday at the age of 76. Fullerton jointed the NASA astronaut corps in 1969 after the Air Force canceled its Manned Orbiting Laboratory spaceflight program. He piloted the shuttle Enterprise during approach and landing tests of the orbiter at Edwards Air Force Base in 1977. He was pilot on the STS-3 shuttle mission in 1982, landing Columbia at White Sands in New Mexico when heavy rains prevented a landing at Edwards. He also commanded STS-51F in 1985, a Spacelab flight of the orbiter Challenger. He left the astronaut corps in 1986 and became a research test pilot at NASA Dryden, flying the 747 shuttle carrier aircraft and a B-52 used for tests of the Pegasus rocket and X-38. Fullerton had been in poor health since suffering a severe stroke in 2009.
