posted October 11, 2007 05:53 PM               

• Lee Archambault, CDR
  
• Dominic Antonelli, Pilot
  
• John Phillips, MS
  
• Steven Swanson, MS
  
• Joseph Acaba, MS (Educator)
  
• Richard Arnold, MS (Educator)
  
• Koichi Wakata, ISS Flight Engineer

posted October 14, 2007 12:52 AM               

So as if they would now assign missions going through the alphabet ....

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Jürgen P Esders
Berlin, Germany

International Director (Europe), Space Unit
Vice President, Weltraum Philatelie e. V.

posted October 14, 2007 08:49 AM               

I'll bet George Zamka is glad he was assigned before those guys. Or maybe they're starting over again...?

posted October 19, 2007 04:47 PM               

quote:

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NASA has assigned the space shuttle crew for Discovery's STS-119 mission, targeted for launch in the fall of 2008. The flight will deliver the final pair of power- generating solar array wings and truss element to the International Space Station.

Air Force Col. Lee J. Archambault will command Discovery. Navy Cmdr. Dominic A. Antonelli will serve as the pilot. The mission specialists are Joseph Acaba, Richard R. Arnold II, John L. Phillips and Steven R. Swanson. Antonelli, Acaba and Arnold will be making their first spaceflight.

STS-119 will be the second spaceflight for Archambault and Swanson, who flew together on STS-117 in June. Phillips will be making his third spaceflight.

Discovery will carry the S6 truss segment to complete the 361-foot-long backbone of the space station. The truss includes the fourth pair of solar array wings and electronics that convert sunlight to power for the orbiting laboratory.

Archambault considers Bellwood, Ill., his hometown. He was the pilot for STS-117. He earned a bachelor's and a master's in aeronautical and astronautical engineering from the University of Illinois-Urbana. He was selected as an astronaut in 1998.

Antonelli grew up in Indiana and North Carolina. He earned a bachelor's and a master's in aeronautics and astronautics from Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, and the University of Washington, Seattle, respectively. He has been a CAPCOM, or capsule communicator, during launch and landing of space shuttle missions. He was selected as an astronaut in 2000.

Acaba was raised in Anaheim, Calif. He earned a bachelor's and a master's in geology from the University of California, Santa Barbara, and the University of Arizona, Tucson, respectively. He has middle school and high school math and science teaching experience. He was selected as an astronaut in 2004.

Arnold, raised in Bowie, Md., earned a bachelor's degree in science and completed the teacher certification program at Frostburg State University, Md. He earned a master's in marine, estuarine and environmental science from the University of Maryland, College Park. He has teaching experience at middle schools and high schools around the world. He served as a mission specialist for the 13th NASA Extreme Environments Mission Operations, known as NEEMO, in August 2007. He was selected as an astronaut in 2004.

Phillips considers Scottsdale, Ariz., his hometown. He has logged more than 190 days in space, including STS-100 and Expedition 11 on the space station. He earned a bachelor's in mathematics and Russian from the U.S. Naval Academy, Annapolis, Md., a master's in aeronautical systems from the University of West Florida, Pensacola, and a master's and a doctorate in geophysics and space physics from the University of California, Los Angeles. He retired as a Navy reservist captain in 2002. He was selected as an astronaut in 1996.

Swanson grew up in Steamboat Springs, Colo. He earned a bachelor's in engineering physics from the University of Colorado, Boulder, a master's in applied science in computer systems from Florida Atlantic University, Boca Raton, and a doctorate in computer science from Texas A&M University, College Station. He joined NASA as a systems engineer for the shuttle training aircraft in 1987 and was selected as an astronaut in 1998.

Members of the STS-119 crew were originally announced in 2002, but as a result of changes in the flight manifest, new crew assignments were necessary.

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posted October 27, 2007 07:32 PM               

(Okay, there are probably some rules, just none that we, the public, nor anyone outside the powers-that-be are privy.)

That said, with regards to Gernhardt, the trend thus far has appeared to be to build up flight experience within the astronaut office by giving those with fewer (or no) flights mission assignments (but that is not a hard or fast rule either, as demonstrated by Scott Parazynski in orbit now).

With regards to Kelly, he was among the first astronauts to make comments in print that he really desired to fly Orion. From 2005:

quote:

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"I would take the flight on the new vehicle, and that's because it probably falls in line with being a test pilot... I love the shuttle. It's a fantastic vehicle. I'd love to be a commander. But on the other hand I'd love to fly the new vehicle as well... If everything goes off without a hitch, and we start flying shuttles more regularly again, then I'd say there's a relatively good chance I'd fly the shuttle one more time before it's over... [however] I'm very excited about the crew exploration vehicle, the moon and going on to Mars."

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