Russell L. Rogers
Encyclopedia
Russell Lee Rogers was an astronaut
Astronaut
An astronaut or cosmonaut is a person trained by a human spaceflight program to command, pilot, or serve as a crew member of a spacecraft....

 assigned to the X-20 Dyna-Soar
X-20 Dyna-Soar
The X-20 Dyna-Soar was a United States Air Force program to develop a spaceplane that could be used for a variety of military missions, including reconnaissance, bombing, space rescue, satellite maintenance, and sabotage of enemy satellites...

 program. He was born on April 12, 1928 in Lawrence
Lawrence, Kansas
Lawrence is the sixth largest city in the U.S. State of Kansas and the county seat of Douglas County. Located in northeastern Kansas, Lawrence is the anchor city of the Lawrence, Kansas, Metropolitan Statistical Area, which encompasses all of Douglas County...

, Kansas
Kansas
Kansas is a US state located in the Midwestern United States. It is named after the Kansas River which flows through it, which in turn was named after the Kansa Native American tribe, which inhabited the area. The tribe's name is often said to mean "people of the wind" or "people of the south...

. He was married with five children. Rogers was killed when the engine of his F-105 fighter plane failed near Kadena AB, Okinawa, Japan
Japan
Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...

 on September 13, 1967. He ejected from his aircraft, but his parachute failed to deploy properly.

Rogers was an experimental test pilot at Edwards AFB when selected for the X-20 program in April, 1960. He left the program on December 10, 1963 when it was cancelled.

He received a Bachelor of Science degree in electrical engineering from the University of Colorado
University of Colorado at Boulder
The University of Colorado Boulder is a public research university located in Boulder, Colorado...

 in 1958. After the X-20 program, he remained in the U.S. Air Force on active flight duty as a pilot with the rank of Lt. Colonel at the time of his death.
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