Drucella Andersen
Headquarters, Washington, D.C.                                            
March 12, 1992
(Phone:  202/453-8613)

Barbara Schwartz
Johnson Space Center, Houston
(Phone:  713/483-5111)


RELEASE:  92-34

ASTRONAUT VANCE BRAND JOINS AERO-SPACE PLANE PROGRAM

   Veteran astronaut Vance Brand, commander of three Space 
Shuttle missions, has accepted a new position as Director of 
Plans for the X-30 National Aero-Space Plane (NASP) Joint 
Program Office at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Dayton, 
Ohio, effective immediately.

   Brand will develop program plans and objectives to meet the 
national goals proposed for the National Aero-Space Plane 
effort and will assess the program to make sure individual 
technologies are fully integrated into the  X-30.  The X-30 is 
a flight research vehicle that will take off horizontally, fly 
into orbit, using airbreathing engines as its primary 
propulsion, then return through the atmosphere to land on a 
runway.

   During his 25-year tenure at the Johnson Space Center, 
Houston,  Brand logged 746 hours in space on four flights 
including the Apollo-Soyuz mission in July 1975 and three 
Shuttle missions -- STS-5 in November 1982, STS-41B in February 
1984 and STS-35 in December 1990.

   Selected as an astronaut in April 1966, Brand has applied 
his engineering expertise to numerous ground and flight test 
projects.  In the Astronaut Office, he has held the positions 
of Chief of the Operations Development Branch and Chief of the 
Safety Branch.  He also served as Assistant Project Manager for 
Integration and Assembly of the Space Station.

   Brand has received many awards, including the Federation 
Aeronautique Internationale Yuri Gagarin Gold Medal (1976) and 
De La Vaulx Medal (1983), the AIAA Special Residential Citation 
(1977), the AAS Flight Achievement Award for 1976 (1977) and 
two NASA Space Flight Medals (1983 and 1984).
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   "I thoroughly enjoyed my 25 years at Johnson Space Center 
and the great experience of working on the programs from Apollo 
through Space Shuttle," Brand said.  "However, I am looking 
forward to the challenge of working on the Aero-Space Plane 
with its advanced technology and single stage-to-orbit 
objective." 
                             -end-