CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. -- NASA on Friday named three more astronauts to the crew who will fly NASA's first shuttle mission following the Columbia tragedy, adding to the four crewmembers previously announced.
The mission will be known as STS-114 and is expected to see shuttle Atlantis fly to the International Space Station to test new return to flight procedures and help resupply the orbiting outpost.
The three newly-announced mission specialists include veteran astronauts Andrew Thomas and Wendy Lawrence, along with rookie flier Charles Camarda.
The trio will join the previously announced crew of commander Eileen Collins, pilot James Kelly and mission specialists Stephen Robinson and rookie Soichi Noguchi of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency."This is a demanding mission, and the addition of Andy, Wendy and Charlie to this already well-qualified crew ensures they have all the skills necessary to meet the challenge of Return to Flight and the resumption of Space Shuttle support of the International Space Station," Bob Cabana, director of Flight Crew Operations at the Johnson Space Center in Houston, said in a statement.
"When coupled with Eileen, Jim, Steve and Soichi, who were already trained to perform the assembly tasks on this mission, the full crew will have the expertise and crew time to accomplish all mission objectives," Cabana said.
The original crew members began training for STS-114 in 2001 and were scheduled to fly the next mission following Columbia's STS-107. The flight was to be a crew rotation and resupply mission to the ISS, and originally included astronaut Ed Lu and cosmonauts Sergei Moschenko and Yuri Malenchenko.
Lu and Malenchenko eventually made it to the space station as the Expedition Seven crew, riding into space on a Soyuz rocket. The pair recently returned from space via a Soyuz capsule having spent six months in orbit.
Now the STS-114 mission has changed and won't include crew transfer, but instead will be considered a test flight for a number of new procedures involving inspections of the shuttle exterior, as well as spacewalks to practice heat protection tile repair methods.
"STS-114 is going to be a complex developmental test flight, and this crew has the right set of skills and experience to help get the space shuttles safely flying again," William Readdy, NASA's spaceflight chief, said in a statement.
"STS-114 was always slated to have a crew of seven. But now, instead of three crew rotating on-and-off the International Space Station, all crewmembers will be dedicated to the STS-114 mission objectives," Readdy said.
The STS-114 crew includes five veteran astronauts.
Collins, NASA's first female shuttle commander, flew in 1995 and 1997; Kelly flew in 2001; Robinson flew in 1997 and 1998; Thomas flew in 1996, spent several months aboard the Russian space station Mir in 1998 and 2001; and Lawrence flew in 1995, 1997 and 1998.
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