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T. J. O'Malley

T. J. O'Malley
John Glenn With T.J. O'Malley and Paul Donnelly in Front of - GPN-2002-000049.jpg
O'Malley (left) with John Glenn and Paul Donnelly in front of Friendship 7
Born Thomas Joseph O'Malley
October 15, 1915
Montclair, New Jersey, U.S.
Died November 6, 2009(2009-11-06) (aged 94)
Cape Canaveral Hospital,
Cocoa Beach, Florida, U.S.
Alma mater Newark College of Engineering, B.S. 1936
Occupation aerospace engineer
Spouse(s) Anne O'Malley

Thomas Joseph O'Malley (October 15, 1915 – November 6, 2009), better known as T. J. O'Malley, was an Irish-American aerospace engineer who, as chief test conductor for the Convair division of General Dynamics, was responsible for pushing the button on February 20, 1962 launching the Mercury-Atlas 6 space flight carrying astronaut John Glenn, the first American in orbit. Five years later, NASA asked North American Aviation to hire him as director of launch operations to help get the Apollo program back on track after the Apollo 1 command module fire on the launch pad killed three astronauts. O'Malley continued to play a leadership role in the United States' space program through the first space shuttle launch in 1981.

O'Malley was born in 1915 to parents who emigrated from Ireland to Montclair, New Jersey, and he lived there until 1944. In 1936 he earned a Bachelor of Science degree in Mechanical Engineering at the Newark College of Engineering (now the New Jersey Institute of Technology). Anne Arneth O’Malley became his wife in 1944, and they remained married for 65 years until his death.

Wright Aeronautical in Paterson, New Jersey, the aircraft manufacturing division of Curtiss-Wright Corporation, was O'Malley's first aviation employer. In 1958, he joined General Dynamics and worked as a test engineer for their Convair division on the SM-65 Atlas intercontinental ballistic missile. In 1961, the Atlas was the only rocket in the United States' inventory with sufficient thrust to launch a manned Mercury space capsule into orbit, and Convair was contracted to adapt it for this purpose. After two failed launches of the Atlas carrying an unmanned Mercury capsule, O'Malley was given the task of preparing the Atlas for orbital spaceflight before the end of 1961, because the Soviet Union had already carried out manned orbital missions that year. On September 13, 1961, five months after the last failed launch, the Atlas boosted an unmanned Mercury capsule on an orbital flight.


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