The Complete Book of Spaceflight: From Apollo 1 to Zero Gravity

he joined the NASA Space Task Group at Langley and
was assigned as assistant flight director for Project Mercury.
He served as flight director for all the Gemini missions,
was appointed division chief for flight control in
1968, and continued his duties as flight director for the
Apollo and Skylab programs before being assigned as
deputy director of flight operations with responsibility
for spaceflight planning, training and mission operations,
aircraft operations, and flight crew operations. In 1983,
Kranz was promoted to director of mission operations
with added responsibility for the design, development,
maintenance, and operations of all related mission facilities,
as well as the preparation of the Space Shuttle flight
software. Since his retirement from NASA in 1994, he
has been involved with consulting, motivational speaking
to youth groups, and lecturing on manned spaceflight.
He also serves as a flight engineer on a B-17 Flying
Fortress that performs at air shows throughout the United
States. His autobiography, Failure Is Not an Option: Mission
Control from Mercury to Apollo 13 and Beyond, was
published in 2000. 174
Krieger, Robert L. (1916–1990)
An American aerospace engineer and administrator.
Krieger began his career with NACA (National Advisory
Committee for Aeronautics) in 1936 as a laboratory
apprentice at the Langley Aeronautical Laboratory. Having
left NACA temporarily for college, he earned a B.S.
in mechanical engineering at Georgia Tech in 1943 before
returning to Langley. In 1945, he joined the group that
set up the Pilotless Aircraft Research Station at Wallops
Kuiper Airborne Observatory (KAO) 225
Island under Robert R. Gilruth, and in 1948, he was
appointed director of Wallops Island—a facility that performed
high-speed aerodynamic tests on instrumented
models. In 1958, Wallops became an independent field
center of NASA. Subsequently, Krieger led the first successful
test flight of the Mercury capsule and oversaw the
launch from Wallops of thousands of test vehicles,
including 19 satellites. He retired as director in 1981.
Kristall
See Mir.
Krunichev State Research and Production
Space Center
A major Russian aerospace enterprise, based in Moscow,
that develops and builds Russian components for the
International Space Station as well as a number of
launch vehicles including the Proton, Rockot, and
Angara. It was formed following a presidential decree in
1993 from the Khrunichev Machine-building Plant (originally
set up in 1916 to make cars) and the Salyut Design
Bureau, which had been responsible for building all elements
of the Salyut and Mir space stations.
Ku-band
See frequency bands.
Christopher Kraft Kraft standing
(far right) with (left to right)
Terry J. Hart, NASA deputy
administrator, Hans Mark, NASA
administrator, and James M.
Beggs, Johnson Space Center
Director. President Ronald Reagan
is seated next to astronaut
Daniel C. Brandestein, serving
as CAPCOM. Directly above Reagan
in the background is the
JSC flight operations director,
Gene Kranz. NASA
Kuiper Airborne Observatory (KAO)
A 0.915-m reflecting telescope mounted in a Lockheed
C141 Starlifter jet transport aircraft and flown at altitudes
of up to 13.7 km. Named after the Dutch-American