Cooper, Leroy Gordon, Jr.

Cooper, Leroy Gordon, Jr. 

Born Mar. 6, 1927, in Shawnee, Okla. US pilot and astronaut; lieutenant colonel of the United States Air Force.

In 1949, Cooper graduated from the University of Hawaii and became an air force officer. In 1956 he graduated from the Air Force Institute of Technology and in 1957, from the test pilot school at Edwards Air Force Base, where he subsequently worked as a test pilot and engineer.

In 1959, Cooper was chosen to be a member of the team of astronauts of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (USA). From May 15 to May 17, 1963, he completed his first space flight in the spacecraft Mercury (Faith 7). The spacecraft circled the earth 22 times and remained in space for 34 hr 20 min, traveling a distance of 879,000 km. Cooper undertook his second space flight as commander pilot of the spacecraft Gemini 5 (with C. Conrad). The spacecraft was placed into orbit on Aug. 21, 1965, and over a period of 190 hr 56 min (Aug. 21 to Aug. 29) completed 120 revolutions around the earth, traveling a distance of 5.3 million km.