Heidemarie Stefanyshyn-Piper
- STS- 115 (2006)
- STS- 126 (2008)
Heidemarie Martha " Heide" Stefanyshyn - Piper ( born February 7, 1963 as Heidemarie Martha Stefanyshyn in Saint Paul, Minnesota, United States) is a former American astronaut and naval officer of the United States Navy ( Captain ).
Training
Stefanyshyn - Piper grew up in Saint Paul, the capital of the U.S. state of Minnesota, on. She is the child of immigrants: their now deceased father Michael Stefanyshyn was born Ukrainians, while her mother Adelheid has German roots. Stefanyshyn - Piper comes from a religious home; she attended the private Catholic Cretin - Derham Hall High School in St. Paul and was a member of the Ukrainian scout organization " Plast ". After her high school graduation in 1980, she studied with the support of the U.S. Navy at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Boston engineering and graduated in 1984 with a Bachelor and 1985 with the master from.
Military career
After training Stefanyshyn - Piper took her active service to the Navy. At the Naval Diving and Salvage Training Center in Panama City ( Florida) they could be trained as a marine salvage and storage Cherin. Some years she then worked in the field of repair and salvage of ships. On the in November 1986 put into service salvage cruiser " USS Grapple ", she participated in a training course for Kampftaucherin. During this time she was involved in two rescue missions, the sensation aroused international: the end of August 1988, the traveling on the surface of Peruvian submarine " BAP Pacocha " short rammed in front of reaching its destination port of a Japanese fishing trawler off the native coast and sank within five minutes. The Navy divers from Peru and the U.S. needed eleven months to recover the submarine. Beginning in March 1989 was the oil tanker " Exxon Houston " off the coast of Hawaii's due. Over 440,000 liters of crude oil ran out in front of the island of Oahu before the disabled vessel was towed free.
Stefanyshyn - Piper worked from September 1994 at the Naval Sea Systems Command in Arlington (Virginia) and coordinated the rescue and repair activities for the U.S. Navy.
Astronauts activity
My career goal was a naval pilot. However, do not pass the eye test made them fail. After a decade as a diver she applied to NASA - with success.
Stefanyshyn - Piper was the 16th astronaut group to NASA, the largest group of 1978 formed with a thickness of 35 candidates for the legendary " Thirty Five New Guys". From 2,432 candidates who met the formal selection criteria, emerged 123 finalists, the Johnson Space Center (JSC ) in Houston (Texas ) visited between October 1995 and February 1996 in order to conduct interviews and to be medically examined. Stefanyshyn - Piper turned to the second group of finalists before the beginning of November 1995, the selection committee.
In mid-August 1996, the 16th Group began its two-year basic training at JSC. After that Stefanyshyn - Piper a full-fledged mission specialist. First, she was assigned to the support teams and helped the shuttle crews on launch day when boarding the space shuttle. Subsequently, she was in the astronaut office planned contact for potential experimenters, the experiments on board the ISS.
STS -115
In February 2002 Stefanyshyn - Piper received her first deployment order for a space flight. After more than four years of preparation and waiting time, it launched on September 9, 2006 on mission STS- 115th Main payload of the Atlantis was the 16 -ton P3/P4 element with which the space station has been extended. During the mission Stefanyshyn - Piper undertook together with Joe Tanner two spacewalks together of 13 hours. They mounted P3/P4 at the P1 carrier, put all necessary connections and activated a cooling system. The flight went to twelve days to an end.
STS -126
On 15 November 2008 Stefanyshyn - Piper started with STS -126 to its second space flight. During this flight, she took three spacewalks. The mission ended with the landing of the Space Shuttle Endeavour at Edwards Air Force Base on 30 November 2008.
The Lost Tool Bag
During the first outboard insert 18 November 2008 Stefanyshyn - Piper began on Solar Alpha Rotary Joint to work when she noticed that the grease is a grease gun had expired in their tool bag. According to the instructions of the control center, she wiped this on with a cloth, to which the bag broke and it floated into space. The bag was for eight and a half months, visible from Earth until they came to the west of Mexico on August 3 in the Earth's atmosphere and burned up.
According to the NASA
Stefanyshyn - Piper left NASA in July 2009 and returned to the Naval Sea Systems Command.
Family
Stefanyshyn - Piper is married and has a son.