Samuel T. Durrance

Samuel Thornton Durrance (September 17, 1943 – May 5, 2023) was an American scientist who flew aboard two NASA Space Shuttle missions as a payload specialist.

Background Durrance was born September 17, 1943, in Tallahassee, Florida, but grew up in Tampa, Florida. He attended Wilson Junior High and graduated from Plant High School in 1961, lettering in American football for three years and playing both defense and offense. He received a Bachelor of Science degree and a Master of Science degree in physics (with honors), at California State University, Los Angeles (Cal State LA), 1972 and 1974, respectively,

Durrance was a principal research scientist in the Department of Physics and Astronomy at Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Maryland. He was a co-investigator for the Hopkins Ultraviolet Telescope, one of the instruments of the Astro Observatory.

Durrance resided in Melbourne, Florida, and was a professor of physics and space sciences at Florida Institute of Technology.

Durrance was a member of the American Astronomical Society, American Geophysical Union, International Astronomical Union, Association of Space Explorers, Planetary Society, and Phi Kappa Phi. and had conducted research and directed graduate students at the Johns Hopkins University He had designed and built spectrometers, detectors, and imaging systems, and made numerous spacecraft and ground-based astronomical observations. He conceived and directed a program at Johns Hopkins University to develop adaptive-optics instrumentation for ground-based astronomy. He led the team that designed and constructed the Adaptive Optics Coronagraph, which led to the discovery of the first cool brown dwarf orbiting a nearby star. He was also a co-discoverer of changes in the planet-forming disk surrounding the star beta Pictoris.

In March 1986, Durrance's first mission was for STS-61-E. It was canceled after the Challenger disaster.

Illness and death Durrance was diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease in 2021. He died at a hospice facility in Viera, Florida, on May 5, 2023, of complications from a fall, after battling dementia and Parkinson's disease. He was 79.