A veteran of International Space
Station (ISS) assembly and a first-time flyer will take the spacewalking
lead when NASA’s Atlantis shuttle
arrives at the orbital laboratory next week.
Atlantis’ STS-115 spacewalkers Joseph
Tanner and Heidemarie
Stefanyshyn-Piper venture outside the ISS twice during their 11-day
mission to deliver a new
set of trusses and solar arrays to the high-flying station.
“I think my biggest thrill though is
going to be watching…my EVA crewmates going out for the first time,” Tanner
said in a preflight briefing. “Because that is a special thing to actually
stick your head out that first time and say, ‘Oh wow, here I am’”.
The mission, STS-115, is Tanner’s
first return to the ISS since he helped install the station’s first set of U.S.
solar arrays during NASA’s STS-97
mission in 2000. It also marks the end of a long road for
Stefanyshyn-Piper, who has waited 10 years for her first spaceflight.
Tanner and Stefanyshyn-Piper are
expected to perform the first and third of three 6.5-hour spacewalks during
NASA’s STS-115 mission.
Power tower redux
A self-described “adventurer,”
Tanner, 56, is no stranger to toiling in Earth orbit with only a spacesuit for
protection against the hostile environment of space.
A veteran of five spacewalks and
three shuttle flights, the Danville, Illinois native has racked up more than 33
hours of extravehicular activities (EVAs) during his astronaut career.
“Joe is the king of EVA,” said
Tanner’s fellow STS-115 spacewalker Steven MacLean, who will perform the
mission’s second spacewalk with crewmate Daniel Burbank.
Tanner spent six years in the U.S.
Navy as an aviator and advanced jet trainer before joining NASA’s aerospace
engineer ranks in 1984. Eight years later, he made the astronaut corps.
“I never dreamed that I could
actually do it, because the astronauts were superheroes as you recall,” said
Tanner, a husband and father of two children, of the Apollo astronauts in a
NASA interview. “I think we’re just normal people now.”
Tanner first reached orbit during
NASA’s STS-66 spaceflight, also aboard Atlantis, in 1992 during a science
mission to study Earth’s atmosphere and the Sun’s solar cycle. His spacewalking
career began in 1997, when he and six crewmates launched toward the Hubble Space Telescope on
the STS-82 servicing
mission.
But it was Tanner’s third
spaceflight – STS-97
aboard Endeavour – that gives a sense a dejà vu to his current mission to
help deliver the Port 3/Port 4 truss segments and new solar wings to the
station. During that mission, Tanner and crewmate Carlos
Noriega performed three
spacewalks to install the station’s Port 6 (P6) truss and deploy the
outpost’s first
U.S.-built solar arrays.
“This is kind of a coming home sort
of thing for me to get back to doing EVA on the same type of hardware that
Carlos Noriega and I worked on in 2000,” Tanner told reporters this month.
Tanner is also joining his former
shuttle commander Brent
Jett, who also led the STS-97 mission, for Atlantis’ next flight.
“The night
before we landed on STS-97, I asked Brent, ‘Well what are you going to do, are
you going to fly again or not?’” Tanner said, adding that after some thought
Jett answered yes. “And I thought, maybe we can work it out to fly again
together.”
Long wait to orbit
While Tanner has three spaceflights
under his belt, Stefanyshyn-Piper, 43, is eagerly awaiting her first escape
from Earth’s gravity.
A commander in the U.S. Navy,
Stefanyshyn-Piper hoped at one time to be an aviator, but failed the eye exam.
Instead, she turned to salvage diving and aided in plans to recover stranded
oil tankers and a Peruvian submarine. It was that diving experience that led
Stefanyshyn-Piper to NASA in 1996.
“When I learned about NASA and
building the space station, and I saw how here were doing the construction
underwater, I thought that looks to me more like diving than flying,” she said
in a NASA interview. “And so I think I can do that.”
Stefanyshyn-Piper said she expected
a long wait before her first flight, because her 1996 astronaut class – which included
STS-115 crewmate Daniel
Burbank who has already flown – included 44 spaceflyers-to-be. But there
were some frustrating times, she adds, when it seemed that her job was simply
to train for flight instead of orbital work.
“Just knowing that I am getting a spaceflight,
not only that I’m getting to do two spacewalks, that in itself is pretty
rewarding,” Stefanyshyn-Piper said this month, adding that the assignment came
on her birthday. “Hopefully, my next spaceflight won’t be 10 years from now.”
Growing up with four brothers in St.
Paul, Minnesota and her time in the Navy prepared Stefanyshyn-Piper for her
role as the sole female member of Atlantis’ STS-115 crew.
“I feel like I’m on a trip with five
brothers,” she said of the upcoming spaceflight. “It’s a great crew to be on.”
But Stefanyshyn-Piper said she will
have to tie her waist-length hair up during the flight, not the least of which
to fit the bundle inside her spacesuit.
“NASA actually has a rule that says
females with long hair must have it contained,” she said.
Stefanyshyn-Piper credits her
parents Michael and Adelheid, both of whom immigrated to the U.S., for
inspiring her active life.
“Just to come to a new country where
you don’t know the people and you don’t know the language, maybe I inherited something
from them and felt I had to go off and do exciting things,” she said.
Stefanyshyn-Piper has drawn on the
support of her family, including husband Glenn and son Michael, to prepare for
her upcoming spaceflight, and has packed away one item to take into space for
her brother Eric – the only one who won’t be at the launch – a U.S. Marine who
recently deployed to Iraq.
Both Stefanyshyn-Piper and Tanner
said that, despite their mission’s pressure to jump start ISS construction –
which has been on hold since the 2003
Columbia accident – they are both looking forward to enjoying their
upcoming flight when they have a private moment.
“If you’re not having fun, than
you’re missing out on part of thrill of spaceflight,” Tanner said.
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