Robert J. Cenker

During an interview to discuss his scheduled appearance at The New Jersey Governor's School of Engineering & Technology at Rutgers University in July 2019, Cenker talked about his education at Rutgers, his work at RCA, his shuttle mission, his connection to the Challenger crew, his thoughts on the importance of the Apollo 11 mission, and of space travel in general. He concluded:

The Cradle of Aviation in Garden City, New York invited Cenker to participate in its "Moon Fest" planned for July 20, 2019, exactly fifty years after the Apollo 11 landing. It was announced that Cenker would join two fellow shuttle astronauts from New York, Bill Shepherd and Charlie Camarda, at the celebration.

In a July 2019 interview discussing the 50th anniversary of Apollo 11, Cenker commented that he believes that humans have an innate desire to explore, saying "It’s not learned... It’s in your genes". Discussing his religious beliefs, Cenker said "I'm a good, practicing Catholic. One of the guys I flew with was an agnostic. I think going into space reinforces what you believe when you went... [The agnostic astronaut] couldn’t grasp how one being could create all this. I came back thinking ‘God, you have to be there’".

In 2017, Cenker's STS-61C crewmate former US Senator Bill Nelson spoke at a session of the US House of Representatives. In an address, titled "Mission to Mars and Space Shuttle Flight 30th Anniversary", he read into the Congressional Record the details of the mission of STS-61C, as well as the names and function of each crew member including Cenker.

In June 2017, Cenker traveled to Scotland where he and astronaut Doug Wheelock gave a series of talks to children in Fife schools as part of the Scottish Space School.

Cenker continues to make periodic public appearances representing NASA and the astronaut program, including at the Kennedy Space Center in March 2017 and January 2023.

During the six-day mission, January 12–18, Cenker performed a variety of physiological tests, operated a primary experiment – an infrared imaging camera – and assisted with the deployment of RCA Americom's Satcom Ku-1 satellite, the primary mission objective. Satcom Ku-1 was deployed nearly 10 hours into the mission, and Satcom later reached its designated geostationary orbital position at 85 degrees West longitude where it remained operational until April 1997, the last major commercial satellite deployed by the Space Shuttle program. In a 2014 video of the "Tell Me a Story" series titled "Close My Eyes & Drift Away", posted to the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex YouTube channel, Cenker tells a humorous story regarding a zero-g sleeping problem he faced on his mission.

Following the Challenger disaster, the Shuttle fleet was grounded until 1988. Even after Shuttle missions resumed, civilian Payload Specialists like Cenker were excluded until the Payload Specialist program was reinstated on December 2, 1990, when Samuel T. Durrance, an Applied Physics Laboratory astrophysicist and Ronald A. Parise, a Computer Sciences Corporation astronomer, flew aboard STS-35. By that time, RCA had been purchased by General Electric, and RCA Astro-Electronics became part of GE. Following two additional ownership transitions, the facility was closed in 1998. As a result, Cenker was the only RCA Astro-Electronics employee, and only employee in the history of the facility under all of its subsequent names, to ever fly in space.

In January 1986, Cenker was a crew member on the twenty-fourth mission of NASA's Space Shuttle program, the seventh flight of Space Shuttle Columbia, designated as mission STS-61-C. Cenker served as a Payload Specialist, representing RCA Astro-Electronics. This mission was the final flight before the Challenger disaster, which caused the Space Shuttle program to be suspended until 1988, and impacted NASA's Payload Specialist program for even longer. As a result, Cenker's mission was called "The End of Innocence" for the Shuttle program. Following the completion of his Shuttle mission, Cenker returned to work in the commercial aerospace field. Since his flight, he has made numerous public appearances representing NASA and the Shuttle program, in the United States, as well as internationally.

Prior to its successful launch, Columbia had several aborted launch attempts, including one on January 6 which was "one of the most hazardous in the Shuttle’s operational history" to that point. As documented in Crewmember Bill Nelson's book "Mission: An American Congressman's Voyage to Space", and as reported in Spaceflight Insider, "The launch attempt on Jan. 6, 1986 was halted at T-31 seconds. The weather was perfect for the scheduled launch at dawn, but a failure of a liquid oxygen drain valve prevented it to close properly. The valve was then closed manually, but not quickly enough to prevent a low temperature in one fuel line." However, Nelson says that what really happened was that "the valve did not close because it was not commanded to close", and that it was later determined that the Rogers Commission, investigating the series of mistakes that forced this second scrub, recognized that the problems were personnel-related, caused by fatigue from overwork: One potentially catastrophic human error occurred 4 minutes 55 seconds before the scheduled launch of mission 61-C on January 6, 1986. According to a Lockheed Space Operations Company incident report, 18,000 pounds of liquid oxygen were inadvertently drained from the Shuttle external fuel tank due to operator error. Fortunately, the liquid oxygen flow dropped the main engine inlet temperature below the acceptable limit causing a launch hold, but only 31 seconds before lift-off. As the report states, "Had the mission not been scrubbed, the ability of the orbiter to reach a defined orbit may have been significantly impacted.

There was another near-catastrophic launch abort three days later. Referring to the January 9 abort, pilot Charlie Bolden later stated that it "...would have been catastrophic, because the engine would have exploded had we launched. In all, it took a record eight attempts to get Columbia off the ground. Columbia finally launched and achieved orbit on January 12, 1986, with a full crew of seven. Along with Cenker, the crew included Robert L. "Hoot" Gibson, future NASA Administrator Charles F. Bolden, George D. Nelson, Steven A. Hawley, Franklin R. Chang-Diaz, and US Representative Bill Nelson. Cenker and his crewmates traveled over 2.5 million miles in 98 orbits aboard Columbia and logged over 146 hours in space.

This flight of Columbia was originally scheduled to occur in August 1985, but the timeline slipped. In July 1985 the payload was finalized to include the RCA satellite, and Cenker was assigned to the mission, now designated as STS-61-C. Magilton was assigned as the back-up.

Leading up to the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 mission, Cenker participated in several public events with other former NASA astronauts.

Robert Joseph "Bob" Cenker (born November 5, 1948) is an American aerospace and electrical engineer, aerospace systems consultant, and former astronaut. Cenker worked for 18 years at RCA Astro-Electronics, and its successor company GE Astro Space, on a variety of spacecraft projects. He spent most of his career working on commercial communications satellites, including the Satcom, Spacenet and GStar programs.

Cenker was born on November 5, 1948, and raised in Menallen Township, Pennsylvania. He started his education at St. Fidelis College Seminary in Herman, Pennsylvania, leaving in 1962. In 1970 Cenker enrolled at Penn State University where he earned a Bachelor of Science degree in aerospace engineering. He continued his studies at Penn State and earned a Master of Science degree in 1973, also in aerospace engineering. Cenker earned a second Master of Science degree in electrical engineering from Rutgers University in 1977.