NASA Career
Selected by NASA in May 1984, Cameron became an astronaut in June 1985. His technical assignments have included work on Tethered Satellite Payload, flight software testing in the Shuttle Avionics Integration Laboratory (SAIL), launch support activities at Kennedy Space Center, and spacecraft communicator (CAPCOM) in Mission Control for STS-28, 29, 30, 33 and 34. Cameron's management assignments in NASA include Section Chief for astronaut software testing in SAIL, astronaut launch support activities, and Operations Assistant to the Hubble Repair Mission Director. In 1994, Cameron served as the first NASA Director of Operations in Star City, Russia, where he worked with the Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center staff to set up a support system for astronaut operations and training in Star City, and received Russian training in Soyuz and Mir spacecraft systems, and flight training in Russian L-39 aircraft.
A veteran of three space flights, Cameron has logged over 561 hours in space. He served as pilot on STS-37 (April 5-11, 1991), and was the spacecraft commander on STS-56 (April 9-17, 1993) and STS-74 (November 12-20, 1995).
Cameron flew his first mission as pilot on STS-37. This mission was launched on April 5, 1991, and featured the deployment of the Gamma Ray Observatory for the purpose of exploring gamma ray sources throughout the universe. Space Shuttle Atlantis landed on April 11, 1991. On his second mission, he was spacecraft commander on STS-56, carrying ATLAS-2. During this nine-day mission, the crew of Space Shuttle Discovery conducted atmospheric and solar studies in order to better understand the effect of solar activity on the Earth’s climate and environment, and deployed and retrieved the autonomous observatory Spartan. STS-56 launched on April 8, 1993, and landed at Kennedy Space Center on April 17, 1993. On his third mission, Cameron commanded Atlantis on STS-74, NASA’s second Space Shuttle mission to rendezvous and dock with the Russian space station Mir, and the first mission to use the Shuttle to assemble a module and attach it to a space station. STS-74 launched on November 12, 1995, and landed at Kennedy Space Center on November 20, 1995.
Cameron left NASA on August 5, 1996 to join Hughes Training, Inc., a subsidiary of General Motors Corporation, as Executive Director of Houston Operations. In September 1997, Cameron transferred to Saab Automobile, AB, in Sweden, as Vehicle Line Executive for the Saab 9-3 automobile. He was called "Kalle Comet" by his co workers at Saab. Upon his return to the United States, Cameron worked at the General Motors Technical Center in Warren, Michigan, near Detroit, in positions in World Wide Purchasing, Supplier Technology Acquisition, Research and Development, and Fuel Cell Vehicle Development.
Following the loss of the Space Shuttle Columbia and her crew, Cameron returned to the space program in October 2003, taking a founding position as a Principal Engineer in the NASA Engineering & Safety Center, based at the NASA Langley Research Center, in Hampton, Virginia. In June 2005, Cameron was selected as Deputy Director for Safety of the NESC, and in June 2007 he was relocated to the NESC office at the Johnson Space Center in Houston.
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