NAME: Daniel M. Tani
NASA Astronaut
PERSONAL DATA: Born February 1, 1961 in Ridley
Park, Pennsylvania, but considers Lombard, Illinois, to be his hometown.
Married to the former Jane Egan from Cork, Ireland. They have two children. He
enjoys golf, flying, running, tennis, music, cooking. His mother, Rose Tani,
resides in Lombard, Illinois. His father, Henry N. Tani, is deceased.
EDUCATION: Graduated from Glenbard East High
School, Lombard, Illinois, in 1979; received a bachelor and a master of science
degree in mechanical engineering from Massachusetts Institute of Technology
(MIT) in 1984 and 1988, respectively.
AWARDS: Honorary Doctorate of Science,
Elmhurst College (IL) 2003. Recipient of the 2003 Excellence Award in Science
and Technology from the U.S. Pan Asian American Chamber of Commerce. Recipient
of the Japanese-American Citizen League's Nikkei of the Biennium for Science
and Technology, 2002. NASA spaceflight medal, 2001. Orbital Sciences
Corporation Outstanding Technical Achievement Award, 1993.
EXPERIENCE: After Tani received his bachelor's
degree from MIT, he worked at Hughes Aircraft Corporation in El Segundo,
California as a design engineer in the Space and Communications group. In 1986,
he returned to MIT and received his master's degree in mechanical engineering
in 1988, specializing in human factors and group decision making.
After graduation, Tani worked for Bolt Beranek and
Newman in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in the experimental psychology department.
In 1988, Tani joined Orbital Sciences Corporation (OSC) in Dulles, Virginia,
initially as a senior structures engineer, and then as the mission operations
manager for the Transfer Orbit Stage (TOS). In that role, he served as the TOS
flight operations lead, working with NASA/JSC mission control in support of the
deployment of the ACTS/ TOS payload during the STS-51 mission in September
1993.
Tani then moved to the Pegasus program at OSC as the
launch operations manager. In that capacity, he served as lead for the
development of procedures and constraints for the launching of the air launched
Pegasus unmanned rocket. Tani also was responsible for defining, training, and
leading the team of engineers who worked in the launch and control room.
NASA EXPERIENCE: Selected as an astronaut candidate by NASA in April
1996, Tani reported to the Johnson Space Center in August 1996. Having
completed two years of training and evaluation, he qualified for flight
assignment as a mission specialist in 1998.
He held technical duties in the Astronaut Office
Computer Support Branch, and EVA Branch and has served as a Crew Support
Astronaut (CSA) for Expedition-4.
Tani flew on STS-108 in 2001, and has logged over 11 days in space, including
over 4 EVA hours in one space walk.
In 2002, he was a crewmember on the Aquarius undersea
research habitat for 9 days as part of the NEEMO-2
mission (NASA Extreme Environment Mission Operations). Tani then trained
and qualified as the backup flight engineer for Expedition
11, which launched aboard the Soyuz TMA-6 in April 2005.
He is currently assigned as a flight engineer for Expeditions
15 and 16. He will launch to the International Space Station (ISS) aboard STS-120
and will return aboard STS-122,
living and working for several months on the ISS. During that time he will
perform 3 spacewalks and numerous robotic operations in support of the
installation and checkout of Node-2, now named Harmony.
SPACE FLIGHT EXPERIENCE: STS-108 Endeavour
(December 5-17, 2001) was the 12th shuttle flight to visit the International Space
Station. During the mission Tani served as Mission Specialist-2.
Endeavour's crew delivered the Expedition-4
crew and returned the Expedition-3 crew. The crew unloaded over three tons of
supplies, logistics and science experiments from the Raffaello
Multi-Purpose Logistics Module. Tani performed a space walk to
wrap thermal blankets around ISS Solar Array Gimbals. STS-108 was accomplished
in 185 Earth orbits, traveling 4.8 million miles in 283 hours and 36 minutes,
including an EVA of 4 hours and 12 minutes.
Last updated: January 2007
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