NASA veteran astronaut Dan Burbank leaves NASA

NASA astronaut Dan Burbank. Photo Credit: Kim Shiflett / NASA

After being commissioned by the agency to become an astronaut in 1996 and spending some 188 days in orbit, Dan Burbank decided that it was time to hang up his spacesuit.

The last day of Burbank with the space agency was Friday, June 29. It marked the end of a career that lasted 22 years and included three trips to the International Space Station.

Burbank plays the guitar during one of his stays at the International Space Station. Photo Credit: NASA

His first flight to space was aboard the Space Shuttle Atlantis as Mission Specialist 3 on STS-106, launched from Launch Complex B Kennedy Space Center. space station to support multinational shipments. STS-106 saw an estimated value of three tonnes of freight transported to the ISS

It would not be Burbank's last trip to the lab in orbit – only the first

Six years later, and the same shuttle orbiter, the STS-115, Burbank would help to continue building the ISS by adding another pair of solar networks to help power the station. Burbank played a role because, during an extra-vehicular activity that lasted more than seven hours, he helped tie them to the ISS

"Dan was a good friend since we started training astronaut candidates together. " , head of the astronaut office at Johnson Space Center of NASA in Houston via a publication published by the agency. "He has done a tremendous job for the agency and has been a valued member of the NASA team for over 20 years and we will miss him very much and wish him all the best." [19659015] Finally, in November 2011, Burbank performed his last space mission aboard the Soyuz capsule Soyuz TMA-22 in November 2011. The mission took off from Baikonur, Cosmodrone, Kazakhstan , at the top of a Soyuz-FG rocket and marked the beginning of Burbank's work as a flight engineer on the Expedition 29 crew – and as commander of the Expedition 30

last trip to the 20-year-old space station, it was part of the instrumental changes to the ISS. According to a statement issued by the agency: … his crew made 23 major hardware upgrades and six major software upgrades to the command and processing system, hosted five visiting spacecraft and participated in nearly 200 scientific experiments. April 2012.

One of Burbank's last roles at NASA was as head of the vehicle integration and testing office at Johnson's Air Operations Branch NASA Space Center in Houston, Texas

. US Coast Guard astronauts (the other being Bruce Melnick) to become astronauts (Burbank was a Captain of the US Coast Guard where he recorded 4,000 flying hours).

During his stay at the Coast Guard, Burbank was part of over 2,000 flights, of which more than 300 were search and rescue missions. Most of the flights he made were in helicopter.

Video reproduced with the kind permission of NASA Johnson

Tagged: Astronaut Dan Burbank NASA International Space Station Space Shuttle Atlantis The Chain

Jason Rhian

Jason Rhian spent several years honing his skills with internships at NASA, the National Space Society and other organizations . He has provided content for sales outlets such as: Aviation Week and Space Technology, Space.com, The Mars Society and Universe Today.