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Wall of Honor Level:
Air and Space Friend

Honored by:
Christiane Webster

Mr. Robert Webster graduated from NC State University in 1974 with a BS Degree in Aerospace Engineering. While at NCSU, Bob was a Cooperative Engineering student at Pratt & Whitney Aircraft's West Palm Beach Research Center. He was a member and past President of the Iota Lambda Chapter of Alpha Phi Omega service fraternity and was initiated into Phi Eta Sigma, Tau Beta Pi, and Phi Kappa Phi honor societies. He graduated from the US Naval Test Pilot School in the Flight Test Engineering curriculum. He has a Masters in Engineering Management degree from Florida Tech (1990).

He started work at the then Naval Air Test Center (NATC) in June 1974 as a Flight Test Engineer. He worked on various F-14A and F/A-18A flight test programs, including F-14A performance testing, F-14A Asymmetric Flap/Slat Flying Qualities evaluation, and F-14A/TARPS Flying Qualities and Performance evaluation, where he was the lead Test Engineer and Test Conductor. Bob was the Lead Performance Test Engineer and NPE 1 Lead Test Conductor for the initial evaluation of the F/A-18A, and was the Test Conductor for the Navy's first flight of the F/A-18A. In 1979, he joined the staff of the US Naval Test Pilot School as an Instructor of Aerodynamics.

In January 1981, he accepted a position with NASA at the Kennedy Space Center as a NASA Test Director (NTD). As an NTD, Bob managed and directed integrated testing of the Space Shuttle and oversaw all Launch Complex 39 test operations. The NTD also managed and directed the Launch Team during the launch countdown and launch of the Space Shuttle. He was the Lead NTD for the launch of STS-7, STS-41C, and STS-51A. STS-7 launched the first American woman, Dr. Sally Ride, into space. In late 1984, Bob accepted a position as a NASA Payload Manager, managing the team of NASA, Contractor, and Customer engineers and technicians preparing shuttle payloads for launch, including the integration and testing of the payloads with the Shuttle. He was the NASA Payload Manager for the Hubble Space Telescope Deployment Mission, the Gamma Ray Observatory, the first launch of the Tethered Satellite System, Tracking and Data Relay Satellites, and other Commercial Satellite missions. He also managed the development of the operation to transport the HST to KSC from Sunnyvale CA. In 1993, Webster was named as the KSC representative to the NASA Space Station Transition Team in Washington DC, where the International Space Station (ISS) Program Office was organized and its Concept of Operations developed. In support of ISS element processing at KSC, Bob was the Division Chief of the Assembly and Internationals Division of the Space Station and Shuttle Payloads directorate until his early retirement in 2000. In this capacity, he led the effort to obtain Agency approval for a series of successful ISS element pre-launch integrated tests, which were planned and conducted by his Division engineers. Upon his retirement from NASA, Bob worked for 15 additional years as a consultant to numerous clients managing the development of Proposals for Government contracts.

Awards received by Mr. Webster include: NATC Special Achievement Awards; NATC Test Project Engineer of the Year 1977-1978; NASA Space Station Program Office Team Excellence Award; HST Transportation Group Achievement Award; NASA Silver Snoopy Award for exemplary service to Human Space Flight missions; NASA Space Flight Awareness Launch Honoree award; and the NASA Exceptional Service Medal.