Joe Engle, the first astronaut to fly in space aboard two different winged vehicles, has died at the age of 91.
Engle's death on Wednesday (July 10) was announced in a note from his family shared publicly on Facebook.
"Blessed with natural piloting skills, General Joe, as he was known to many, was at his happiest in any cockpit," read the note. "He lived a fulfilled life as a proud American, U.S. Air Force pilot, astronaut and Kansas Jayhawk. His passing leaves a tremendous loss in our hearts."
Engle's first flight into space preceded him becoming a NASA astronaut by 10 months. As a test pilot in a joint U.S. Air Force and NASA-run research program, Engle flew the X-15 rocket plane above 50 miles (80 km), qualifying him for his astronaut wings, on June 29, 1965.
"I honestly recall that more important than going over the 50 miles was getting as close to [the] planned altitude profile as possible, and I think the fact that it came out very, very close meant more to me, really, than the fact that I'd gone over 50 miles," said Engle in a 2004 NASA oral history.
Engle repeated the feat two more times out of his 16 total flights aboard the X-15 before being selected for NASA's fifth group of astronauts in April 1966.
His second winged ride into space was on the space shuttle Columbia.
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He was, according to everything I’ve read, a truly superb stick and rudder man. He flew the X-15 just fine through a total instrument failure, and hand-flew maneuvers throughout big parts of the reentry of STS-2.
An amazing career! RIP, General Engle.
In all my years I've never seen the like. It has to be more than a hundred sea miles and he brings us up on his tail. That's seamanship, Mr. Pullings. My God, that's seamanship!
