Two veteran astronauts are gearing
up to upgrade the International Space Station (ISS) once their space shuttle
Endeavour arrives at the orbital laboratory later this week.
If all goes as planned, Endeavour's
STS-118 mission specialists Rick Mastracchio and Dafydd "Dave"
Williams will stage up to four spacewalks outside the ISS to install a new
piece of starboard-side framework, spare parts, as well as make some repairs.
The excursions will mark the first career spacewalks for both seasoned
spaceflyers.
"It's a really great
opportunity that I have to be able to do this mission," said Williams, who
represents the Canadian Space Agency and hopes to lead one of the mission's
four possible spacewalks. "Being able to lead a spacewalk is a tremendous
amount of responsibility."
Mastracchio, Williams and five
crewmates are set to launch towards the ISS at 6:36 p.m. EDT (2236 GMT). Their
STS-118 crew also includes mission
specialist Barbara Morgan, a teacher-turned-astronaut who originally joined
NASA in 1985 as the backup for Teacher in Space Christa McAuliffe. McAuliffe
and six NASA astronauts were aboard the shuttle Challenger when in broke apart
just after launch in January 1986.
Blue collar spaceflyer
A native of Waterbury, Connecticut, Mastracchio
is a born engineer with a unique view of his role in NASA's astronaut
corps.
"I kind of think of myself as
the blue collar astronaut," Mastracchio, 47, said in an interview.
"I'm not a scientist. I'm not a flight test pilot. I'm not a doctor. I'm
just an engineer who got lucky and got selected as an astronaut, pretty
much."
Carrying master's degrees in
electrical engineering and physical science, Mastracchio first acquainted
himself with flight control computers in 1982 as a Hamilton Standard engineer
in Connecticut before moving to Houston five years later to join the
then-Rockwell Shuttle Operations Co. at NASA's Johnson Space Center.
By 1993, he was a full-fledged
flight controller in Mission Control before, after three separate interviews,
being selected to join NASA's astronaut corps in 1996.
"To tell you the truth...I didn't
even know you could be an astronaut when I was a kid," Mastracchio said in
a NASA interview, adding that his first revelation came after college, when a
magazine ad that encouraged readers to send away for an application. "So,
I sent away for an astronaut application just to see what [it] looked
like."
Mastracchio is making a return to
the ISS with STS-118. He last flew to the high-flying laboratory in September
2000 as an STS-106
mission specialist aboard NASA's space shuttle Atlantis. Working alongside his
six crewmates, Mastracchio helped outfit the then-empty space station with
batteries, power converters, a treadmill and toilet to ready the ISS for its
first human inhabitants during their 12-day mission.
For STS-118, Mastracchio serves as
Mission Specialist 2 and the lead spacewalker for the mission's three planned extravehicular
activities (EVAs). He will work alongside Williams for the first two, then step
outside the ISS with the station's Expedition 15 flight engineer Clayton
Anderson. A fourth spacewalk, led by Williams and also including Anderson, may
be added to the mission if a new power transfer system performs properly,
mission managers have said.
"On this mission, the most
exciting things are going to be those I haven't done before, and that's the
spacewalks," Mastracchio told reporters. "They will, of course, take
up most of my time."
Dr. Astronaut
Williams, 53, is a medical doctor by
training and veteran emergency physician with a taste for exploration that
began at a young age.
He remembers following the flights
of NASA's original Mercury flights as a six-year-old, but reaching space himself
seemed beyond the reach of his Saskatoon home in the Saskatchewan, Canada. The
ocean, on the other hand, appeared more attainable, especially after Canada's
first aquanaut Joe McGinnis became his nation's first undersea research laboratory
in habitant.
"And I thought, 'Wow! You know,
if I can't be an astronaut, I want to be an aquanaut, and I want to be just
like him," said Williams, who is married and has two children.
Since then, Williams
has become both. He joined Canada's astronaut corps in 1992 and, six years
later, spent 16 days in space aboard the shuttle Columbia during NASA's STS-90
Neurolab mission to study the effects of microgravity on the human brain and
vestibular system.
Williams later commanded expeditions
to Aquarius, an undersea laboratory off the coast of Florida that hosts NASA's
Extreme Environment Operations missions to train astronauts for spaceflight
and test telerobotic medicine techniques. He hopes that in 2019, the 50th
anniversary of NASA's first Apollo landing, astronauts will once more return to
the moon.
During STS-118, Williams said he will
be especially proud to ride Endeavour's Canadian-built robotic arm, aptly named
Canadarm, during his spacewalks as Mission Specialist 3.
"From a Canadian perspective, I
get really excited being able to be in space," he said. "And this
will be the first time I've had a chance to actually ride on the end of the
Canadarm."
During Neurolab, he added, Williams
spent the entirety of his space trek inside Columbia, so he is looking forward
to gazing down at Earth through nothing more than his spacesuit helmet
faceplate.
"I think EVA is going to be the
best part of the spaceflight," Mastracchio agreed. "It's hard to
believe that it won't be."
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