PEORIA. Ill. — A space station cargo capsule set to launch to the International Space Station is named after a graduate of Bradley University.
Major Robert Lawrence Jr. graduated from Bradley in 1956 with a degree in chemistry, he was also the first African American to be selected as an astronaut.
Bradley professor Dr. Dean Campbell said the spacecraft will launch around 4:39 p.m. from Wallops Island in Virginia, and carry supplies to the space station.
“Among the things it is carrying are about five different science projects. Some of them are more biologically related, things related to cell growth,” Campbell said. “They’re also going to be bringing up an electron microscope.”
The capsule will stay docked at the space station for about 30 days, and then will be released.
“An experiment that they’re going to run after they release from the International Space Station, it’s a fire experiment. Things burn differently in space than they do here on Earth,” Campbell said.
Different samples will be burned inside of the capsule, and once the experiment is done, the capsule will be de-orbited and burn up in the atmosphere.
Dr. Michelle Fry, the Chair and Associate Professor of the Mund-Lagoski Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry at Bradley said during Lawrence’s time at the university, he was a member of ROTC.
“When he graduated he was commissioned as a second lieutenant officer in the Air Force, and went overseas to Germany to train fighter pilots,” Fry said.
Fry said as a part of his determination and perseverance, he learned German to teach the pilots in their own language to avoid confusion.
Lawrence was killed in 1967 while he was training a student in a Lockheed F-104.
“Something went amiss during that training episode. It was in December of the same year he learned he was accepted into the manned orbital laboratory space program,” Fry said.
Lawrence is remembered at Bradley through many elements such as a lecture hall in his name, a portrait by W. F. Hardin, the Major Robert H. Lawrence Jr. Memorial Scholarship, and the Robert H. Lawrence Endowed Lectureship.
“He was a remarkable person,” Fry said. “Even in a short life he accomplished so much. And, he’s left a legacy at Bradley that persists.”
A launch watch party will be hosted at Bradley on Sunday to watch the launch of the S.S. Robert H. Lawrence. The party will start at 4:00 p.m. in the Lawrence Lecture Hall on campus, and the estimated launch time is 4:39 p.m.
