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Clifton Williams

American - (NASA)

Lost In Training

Date of Birth: Sept. 26, 1932
Date of Death: Oct. 5, 1967


Clifton Curtis "C.C." Williams Jr. was an American naval aviator, test pilot, mechanical engineer, major in the United States Marine Corps, and NASA astronaut, who was killed in a plane crash; he had never been to space. The crash was caused by a mechanical failure in a NASA T-38 jet trainer, which he was piloting to visit his parents in Mobile, Alabama. The failure caused the flight controls to stop responding, and although he activated the ejection seat, it did not save him. He was the fourth astronaut from NASA's Astronaut Group 3 to have died, the first two (Charles Bassett and Theodore Freeman) having been killed in separate T-38 flights, and the third (Roger B. Chaffee) in the Apollo 1 fire earlier that year. The aircraft crashed in Florida near Tallahassee within an hour of departing Patrick AFB. Although he was never on a spaceflight, he served as backup pilot for the mission Gemini 10, which took place in July 1966. Following this mission, he was selected to be the Lunar Module pilot for an Apollo mission to the Moon commanded by Pete Conrad. Following Williams' death, Alan Bean became Lunar Module pilot for Conrad's mission, which ended up being Apollo 12, the second lunar landing.


Administrator: Bill Nelson

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration is an independent agency of the executive branch of the United States federal government responsible for the civilian space program, as well as aeronautics and aerospace research. NASA have many launch facilities but most are inactive. The most commonly used pad will be LC-39B at Kennedy Space Center in Florida.


Falcon 9
Success
2 days, 1 hour ago
NROL-113
Space Launch Complex 4E - Vandenberg SFB, CA, USA

Third batch of satellites for a reconnaissance satellite constellation built by SpaceX and Northrop Grumman for the National Reconnaissance Office to…


Long March 6
Success
2 days, 10 hours ago
Geely Constellation Group 03
Launch Complex 16 - Taiyuan Satellite Launch Center, People's Republic of China

10 LEO communications satellites for Chinese car manufacturer Geely Automotive for testing autonomous driving/inter-vehicle communication services. T…


Falcon 9
Success
2 days, 13 hours ago
Starlink Group 8-11
Space Launch Complex 40 - Cape Canaveral, FL, USA

A batch of 21 satellites for the Starlink mega-constellation - SpaceX's project for space-based Internet communication system.


Vega
Success
3 days, 2 hours ago
Sentinel-2C
Ariane Launch Area 1 (ELV) - Guiana Space Centre, French Guiana

Sentinel-2C is the third satellite in the Sentinel-2 constellation, which is designed to provide high-resolution optical imagery for land services.


Long March 4B
Success
5 days, 3 hours ago
Yaogan 43 Group 02
Launch Complex 3 (LC-3/LA-1) - Xichang Satellite Launch Center, People's Republic of China

The Yaogan 43 Group 02 is a group of Chinese military “remote sensing” satellites of unknown purposes.