posted June 19, 2006 08:11 AM            

ESA astronaut Paolo Nespoli assigned to crew for Shuttle flight STS-120

ESA astronaut Paolo Nespoli, of Italian nationality, was today assigned to the crew of the Space Shuttle flight which in summer 2007 will launch Node 2, an Italian-built U.S. connecting module, to the International Space Station.

For his first space flight, Nespoli will serve as mission specialist, joining five NASA astronauts: Air Force Col. Pamela A. Melroy, who will command the STS-120 Shuttle mission (a veteran Shuttle pilot and the second woman to be named commander); Marine Corps Col. George D. Zamka, on his first space flight, who will serve as pilot; and mission specialists Scott E. Parazynski, Army Col. Douglas H. Wheelock and Navy Capt. Michael J. Foreman, also on his first space flight.

Nespoli's mission will be carried out in the framework of the Memorandum of Understanding between the Italian space agency (ASI) and NASA for the supply to NASA of three pressurised Multi-Purpose Logistic Modules (MPLM) and the assignment to Italy of flight opportunities and ISS utilisation.

Node 2 for the Space Station is a pressurised module which, along with Nodes 1 and 3, interconnects the research, habitation, control and docking modules of the Station itself. The Nodes are used to control and distribute resources between the connected elements. This Node 2 flight precedes the launch of ESA's Columbus laboratory to the ISS.

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posted June 19, 2006 11:28 AM            

NASA Assigns Crew for Shuttle Mission

NASA has assigned crew members to the space shuttle flight that will launch an Italian-built U.S. module for the International Space Station.

Air Force Col. Pamela A. Melroy will command the STS-120 mission to take the Node 2 connecting module to the station. Melroy, a veteran shuttle pilot, is the second woman to command a shuttle. Marine Corps Col. George D. Zamka will serve as pilot. The flight's mission specialists will be Scott E. Parazynski, Army Col. Douglas H. Wheelock, Navy Capt. Michael J. Foreman and Paolo A. Nespoli, a European Space Agency astronaut from Italy. Zamka, Wheelock, Foreman and Nespoli will be making their first spaceflight.

STS-120 will be Melroy's third shuttle flight. The native of Palo Alto, Calif., served as pilot of missions STS-92 in 2000 and STS-112 in 2002, both flights to the space station. Zamka, a native of Jersey City, N.J., has a bachelor's from the U.S. Naval Academy, Annapolis, Md., and a master's from the Florida Institute of Technology, Melbourne, Fla.

Parazynski, who also considers Palo Alto, Calif., his hometown along with Evergreen, Colo., will be making his fifth shuttle flight and is a veteran spacewalker. Wheelock, a native of Windsor, N.Y., is a West Point graduate with a master's from Georgia Tech, Atlanta. Foreman is a Wadsworth, Ohio, native with a bachelor's and a master's from the U.S. Naval Academy and the U.S. Naval Postgraduate School, Monterey, Calif. Nespoli is a native of Milan, Italy. He has a bachelor's and a master's from the Polytechnic University of New York.

This crew announcement reflects reassignments of other astronauts to other missions and to technical and management positions within NASA.

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Jacques

posted June 22, 2006 01:19 PM               

Newly married
Next female commander