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Leestma graduated first in his class from the [[United States Naval Academy|U.S. Naval Academy]] in 1971. As a [[first lieutenant]] afloat, he was assigned to {{USS|Hepburn|FF-1055|6}} in [[Long Beach, California]], before reporting in January 1972 to the U.S. Naval Postgraduate School. He completed [[Naval flight officer|United States Naval Flight Officer training]] and received his [[United States Naval Flight Officer Wings|NFO wings]] in October 1973. He was assigned to [[VF-124]] in [[San Diego, California]], for initial flight training in the [[F-14 Tomcat|F-14A Tomcat]] and then transferred to [[VFA-32|VF-32]] in June 1974 and was stationed at [[Virginia Beach, Virginia]]. Leestma made three overseas deployments to the Mediterranean/North Atlantic areas while flying aboard the [[aircraft carrier]] {{USS|John F. Kennedy|CV-67|6}}. In 1977, he was reassigned to Air Test and Evaluation Squadron Four ([[VX-4]]) at [[Naval Air Station Point Mugu]], [[California]]. As an operational test director with the F-14A, he conducted the first operational testing of new tactical software for the F-14 and completed the follow-on test and evaluation of new F-14A avionics, including the programmable signal processor. He also served as fleet model manager for the F-14A tactical manual.
He has logged over 3,500 hours of flight time, including nearly 1,500 hours in the F-14A. Leestma retired from the Navy as a
===NASA experience===
He was selected by [[NASA]] to become an astronaut in 1980 and was the first member of [[NASA Astronaut Group 9]] to go into space. Following his first flight, Leestma served as a capsule communicator ([[CAPCOM]]) for [[STS-51-C]] through [[STS-61-A]]. He was then assigned as the Chief, Mission Development Branch, responsible for assessing the operational integration requirements of payloads that will fly aboard the [[Space Shuttle]]. From February 1990 to September 1991, when he started training for his third space mission, Leestma served as
A veteran of three space flights, Leestma has logged a total of 532.7 hours in space. He was a mission specialist on STS-41-G (October 5–13, 1984), STS-28 (August 8–13, 1989), and STS-45 (March 24 to April 2, 1992).
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