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Male astronaut in love triangle to leave NASA

The male astronaut involved in the Lisa Nowak love triangle is being shipped back to the Navy, NASA officials said Friday.

Shuttle pilot Cmdr. William Oefelein was told Wednesday that his detail to NASA will end June 1.

“The Navy and NASA have mutually agreed to end his detail to NASA,” said Kylie Clem, a spokeswoman at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston.

Clem said Oefelein completed his assignment as the pilot of shuttle Discovery on an International Space Station assembly mission in December and would be returning to the Navy.

Officials at the Chief of Naval Information Office at the Pentagon were unable to say what Oefelein’s status with the Navy would be when his detail to the NASA Astronaut Office ends this week.

Since returning to Earth in late December, Oefelein has been carrying out a technical assignment with the shuttle branch of the NASA Astronaut Office. His job has been to take part in mission simulations that are carried out as part of a flight controller training program.

Nowak was charged Feb. 6 with attempted kidnapping, battery and destruction of evidence after police said she drove from Houston to Orlando, Fla., to confront Air Force Capt. Colleen Shipman — a romantic rival who was dating Oefelein — in an Orlando International Airport parking lot. Police said Nowak wore diapers during the 900-mile trip so she would not have to stop to go to the bathroom.

Once at the airport, police said, Nowak pepper-sprayed Shipman in an effort to get the woman to talk with her. Nowak at that point was wearing a disguise and had brought with her a BB pistol, knife, medical rubber tubing and garbage bags.

Nowak had been involved in a romantic relationship with Oefelein. He broke it off to see Shipman, who is stationed at Patrick Air Force Base, Fla.

Nowak was fired from NASA but still is with the Navy. She’s been reassigned to the staff at the Chief of Naval Air Training in Corpus Christi, Texas. Her criminal trial in Orlando now is set for September.

Both Nowak and Oefelein also could face courts-martial for cheating on their spouses, conduct that the military considers unbecoming of an officer, officials said. Oefelein is divorced and Nowak is separated. They are the first NASA astronauts to be sent back to their military branch after a public scandal. Nowak is the first astronaut ever arrested on felony charges.

Oefelein, 42, a father of two children, flew his first space mission in December, piloting Discovery on a 13-day International Space Station assembly flight. From window perches inside the shuttle and the station, he orchestrated four space walks during one of the most complex outpost construction missions to date.

Nicknamed “Billy O,” Oefelein was detailed to NASA in 1998. A Top Gun pilot and later an instructor at the U.S. Navy Test Pilot School, he has logged over 3,000 hours in more than 50 aircraft and has more than 200 carrier landings.