Overmyer, Robert Franklyn (1936–1996)

US astronaut. He was pilot of Columbia in November 1982, the first fully operational flight of a space shuttle, on a five-day mission. In April 1985, he commanded the Challenger shuttle carrying the third Spacelab mission. Overmyer was assigned to the Manned Orbital Laboratory programme in 1966, and selected as an astronaut when the programme was cancelled in 1969. He retired from NASA in 1986.