Henry Warren Hartsfield Jr. (November 21, 1933 – July 17, 2014) was a United States Air Force Colonel and NASA astronaut who logged over 480 hours in space.

Hartsfield retired in August 1977 from the United States Air Force with more than 22 years of active service but continued his assignment as a NASA astronaut in a civilian capacity.

[8][9] Hartsfield was the pilot on STS-4, the fourth and final orbital test flight of the shuttle Columbia, which launched from Kennedy Space Center, Florida, on June 27, 1982.

He was accompanied by Thomas K. Mattingly II (spacecraft commander) on this seven-day mission designed to: further verify ascent and entry phases of shuttle missions; perform continued studies of the effects of long-term thermal extremes on the Orbiter subsystems; and conduct a survey of Orbiter-induced contamination on the orbiter payload bay.

These experiments included the Continuous Flow Electrophoresis System (CFES), designed to investigate the separation of biological materials in a fluid according to their surface electrical charge.

[10] The crew is also credited with effecting an in-flight repair which enabled them to activate the first operational "Getaway Special" — comprising nine experiments that range from algae and duckweed growth in space to fruit fly and brine shrimp genetic studies.

STS-4 completed 112 orbits of the Earth before landing on a concrete runway at Edwards Air Force Base, California, on July 4, 1982.

The crew earned the name "Icebusters" when Hartsfield successfully removed a hazardous ice buildup from the orbiter using the Remote Manipulator System (Canadarm).

On his third flight, Hartsfield was spacecraft commander of Challenger on STS-61-A, the West German Spacelab D-1 mission which launched from Kennedy Space Center, Florida, on October 30, 1985.

In this capacity, he reported directly to the Associate Administrator for Safety and Mission Assurance and managed and focused the oversight activities and assessment of the International Space Station Program.

[12] Hartsfield retired from NASA in 1998 and then joined the executive ranks of Raytheon Company as vice president of aerospace engineering services.