- Not to be confused with Edwards Air Force Base.
The Ellington Air Force Base is a US Air Force installation in Houston, TX. Located very close to the Johnson Space Center, it is also used by NASA for aircraft flight operations and pilot training.
General information[]
Ellington AFB is a joint installation shared by various active and reserve military units, and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA).
NASA established its facilities at Ellington as its base for astronaut flight proficiency training and specialized aircraft training in the early 1960s because of its proximity to the newly constructed Manned Spacecraft Center (MSC). Decommissioned T-38 Talon aircraft from the Air Force, assigned with NASA civilian registration numbers, are the primary jet aircraft used for astronaut training at Ellington.
During the Apollo program, Ellington was used for the program's Lunar Landing Training Vehicle (LLTV), a test vehicle to simulate Moon landings with the Apollo LEM, to train their astronauts and astronaut candidates (ASCAN) to handle the lunar landing module in the Moon's airless environment. The vehicles were previously tested and studied at NASA's Flight Research Center at Edwards Air Force Base in California.
History[]
NASA's astronauts and test pilots regularly fly T-38 jets out of Ellington, and use them also to travel to other NASA locations, like Cape Kennedy, KSC, or Palmdale.
During NASA's new Women Astronauts Program in early 1970, the female astronaut candidates had to pass a flight test at Ellington field, supervised by flight instructor Ed Baldwin and observed by NASA's chief astronaut, Deke Slayton.[1] Months later, at day 200 of the program, the remaining 5 ASCANs had to fly the so called "flying bedstead", NASA's LLTV, at Ellington. During the test, candidate Patty Doyle missed the point to eject from the vehicle after she lost control over it and died as the LLTV crashed onto the airfield and caught fire.[1]
In June 1983, Ed Baldwin flew from Ellington AFB to the USAF Plant 42 in Palmdale, California, where he met with Gary Piscotty and Sally Ride to have a look at Pathfinder, NASA's new second generation Space Shuttle, before flying back to Houston, and then to the Cape.[2]
Some days later, during another flight to the Cape together with Gordo Stevens, Ed and Gordo played it too hard with their T-38, resulting in Ed's machine catching fire and Ed having to eject from the fighter, landing on his parachute in the Gulf of Mexico. They were both berated later by NASA administration for their reckless behavior.[2]
In September of that year, after Molly Cobb was told by ophthalmologist Dr. Mitchell that she would go blind, she went to Ellington and flew with a T-38 to the edge of space before stalling and descending 15,000 feet, causing some concerns at Ellington Ops.[3]
Gallery[]
Behind the scenes[]
The air base was built in 1917 after the United States' entry into World War I and initially called "Ellington Field", named for Eric Ellington, a U.S. Army aviator who was killed in a plane crash in San Diego in 1913.
In 1949, the base was renamed to "Ellington Air Force Base".
In 1984, the city of Houston purchased the non-military portion of Ellington to use as a third civil airport, and it was renamed "Ellington Airport" in 2009, while the military area is now called "Ellington Field Joint Reserve Base".
See also[]
- Other USAF facilities:
- Other NASA facilites:
- Johnson Space Center (JSC, later CSC)
- Kennedy Space Center (KSC)
- Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC)
- Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC)
- Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL)
- NASA Flight Research Center (Edwards AFB) (FRC)
- McMurdo Station (NASA annex)
- Carl Sagan Center for Planetary Science
External links[]
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 For All Mankind TV series, season 1, episode 3, "Nixon's Women"
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 For All Mankind TV series, season 2, episode 4, "Pathfinder"
- ↑ For All Mankind TV series, season 2, episode 8, "And Here's to You"