Jan Davis

  • STS -47 (1992)
  • STS -60 ( 1994)
  • STS -85 (1997)

Nancy January Davis ( born November 1, 1953 in Cocoa Beach, Florida, United States) is a former American astronaut. Her birth name is Nancy January Smotherman, and later took the name of her stepfather ( Davis).

Davis received in 1975 a Bachelor in Applied Biology from the Georgia Institute of Technology and in 1977 a bachelor's degree in mechanical engineering from Auburn University. In 1983 she received a master's degree in mechanical engineering and a Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering respectively from the University of Alabama in Huntsville.

In 1977, Davis as an engineer at Texaco. In 1979 she joined as an air and an aerospace engineer for Marshall Space Flight Center of NASA. There she worked on the development of the Hubble and the Chandra Space Telescope. In 1987, she was chief engineer for the redevelopment of reinforced connecting rings of the space shuttle solid rocket boosters for attachment to the outer tank.

Astronauts activity

After an unsuccessful bid for the 10 astronauts group of NASA in June 1987 Davis was selected with the 12th group. She worked as a liaison officer ( CAPCOM ) for seven shuttle flights. In the astronaut office, she worked in the Department of the space shuttle robotic arm and later she was responsible for the payloads of the Shuttle and ISS missions. After their final mission STS -85, she became head of the Human Exploration and Development of Space ( HEDS ) program at NASA Headquarters. From 1999, she was only deputy director and later director of the Flight Projects Directorate at the Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama. She was Director of Safety and Mission Assurance at the Marshall Space Flight Center.

STS -47

On September 12, 1992 Davis started as a mission specialist aboard the space shuttle Endeavour to the tenth Spacelab mission. On board 43 experiments of various kinds were carried out, for example, it was tested whether hornets have the ability to build honeycombs under microgravity. The result was negative. Even in the medical field experiments were operated. For the first time flew a couple working together in space, because at the time Mark Lee and Jan Davis were married.

STS -60

February 3, 1994 Davis started as a mission specialist aboard the space shuttle Discovery into space. A special feature of this flight was that for the first time a Russian cosmonaut Sergei Krikalev flew with an American spaceship. The Wake Shield Facility and the Spacehab module were the main payloads on board.

STS -85

On August 7, 1997 Davis started as a mission specialist aboard the space shuttle Discovery into space. During the twelve-day flight, the German research platform CRISTA -SPAS was released to study the upper atmosphere for over a week. In addition, the Japanese robotic arm MFD ( Manipulator Flight Demonstration ) was tested by the astronauts.

According to the NASA

After leaving NASA in October 2005 she works at Jacobs Sverdrup Engineering, Science, and Technical Services.

Private

Davis is married to his third wife and has two children. Her second husband was the NASA astronaut Mark Lee.

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