Bidspirit auction | Astronaut Bonnie Dunbar signed NASA

Astronaut Bonnie Dunbar signed NASA Columbia OV-102 commemorative FDC PM Kennedy Space Center FL 32815 Jan 4 PM 1990. Missions: STS-61-A STS-32 STS-50 STS-71 STS-89. On August 1, 1979, NASA announced another round of selections for astronaut candidates. There were 3,122 applicants. Once again Dunbar was a finalist, and she was asked to report for interviews and examinations on March 24, 1980. This time she got a call from Abbey asking if she would like to move her office down the hall (where the astronauts were). Her selection as one of the 19 astronaut candidates in NASA Astronaut Group 9 was announced on May 29, 1980. She was one of six civilians selected in the group, three of whom were JSC employees. After completing a year of astronaut candidate training, Dunbar officially became a fully-fledged NASA astronaut on August 21, 1981. Her technical assignments included assisting with the testing of the Space Shuttle onboard software at the Shuttle Avionics Integration Laboratory (SAIL). She was a member of the Flight Crew Equipment Control Board, and as such was involved in the remote manipulator system (RMS) development. She later became the chief of the Mission Development Branch, and was the Astronaut Office interface for ”secondary” payloads, and the lead for the Science Support Group. She was a member of the support crews for the STS-2 and STS-9 missions, and worked with Walter Cronkite on the CBS television coverage of the STS-2 mission.