Andrew Sydney Withiel Thomas

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Andrew Thomas
Andrew Thomas
Country: United States
Organization: NASA
selected on March 31, 1992
(14th NASA Group)
Calls: 4 space flights
Start of the
first space flight: 		May 19, 1996
Landing of the
last space flight: 		August 9, 2005
Time in space: 177 d 9 h 14 m
EVA inserts: 1
EVA total duration: 6 h 21 m
retired on February 2014
Space flights

Andrew Sydney Withiel "Andy" Thomas (born December 18, 1951 in Adelaide , South Australia , Australia ) is a former American astronaut who is also an Australian citizen. He is the only professional astronaut from Australia - already twelve years before him, the oceanographer Paul Scully-Power from Sydney flew into space with the STS-41-G .

Thomas was born in Adelaide, the capital of the state of South Australia, and spent his childhood and youth there. After graduating from St. Peter's College in 1968, he went to the University of Adelaide and studied mechanical engineering. He received his bachelor's degree in 1973 with summa cum laude . He then continued his studies and received his doctorate as a mechanical engineer (Dr.-Ing.) Five years later.

In his senior year at college, Thomas left Australia in 1977 and moved to the United States. He settled in the southeastern part of the country, in Georgia , and started as a research scientist at the aircraft manufacturer Lockheed in Marietta . Three years later he had already made it to the position of project manager in the aerodynamics department . Another three years later he was appointed head of the Advanced Flight Sciences Department, where theoretical studies on questions of fluid and aerodynamics were carried out. He headed Lockheed's Flight Sciences Division from 1987. There, research was carried out into technical solutions for the further development of the company's own aircraft in the area of ​​propulsion and control.

After twelve years at Lockheed, Dr. Thomas residence and employer. He moved to California in 1989 to work at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL). A short time later he was entrusted with the management of a program for materials science research under weightlessness.

Astronaut activity

Thomas was already fascinated by space travel as a child and adolescent. Nevertheless, the desire to become an astronaut was only latent. The opportunity as an Australian to become a spaceman was next to nonexistent. That changed when he arrived in the United States, and he began to imagine a chance to make his dream a reality. Since then he has also consciously tried to steer his professional career in this direction. That was also the reason why he took the position at JPL. At the time, he felt that he had achieved enough that could be decisive for an astronaut application. In addition, he already had “one foot in the door”.

Thomas had given up his Australian citizenship in 1986 in favor of the US, which was the prerequisite for a career as a NASA astronaut. A dual citizenship was not possible for Australians at the time. Thomas was introduced as one of 15 mission specialists with the 14th NASA astronaut group in late March 1992. 87 finalists emerged from a total of 2,054 applicants who met the formal selection criteria. They were invited to the Johnson Space Center (JSC) in Houston , Texas in the fall of 1991 for tests, discussions and medical examinations.

The 24-person group, consisting of 4 pilots and 20 mission specialists (including 5 from abroad), began their one-year basic training at the JSC in August 1992. Then he was a member of the support teams at the Kennedy Space Center who look after their fellow astronauts.

STS-77

In the summer of 1995, Thomas was set up for his first space flight. The STS-77 mission was conducted by the space shuttle Endeavor in May 1996 and was the fifth mission of the commercial Spacehab module. A dozen experiments from the fields of biology , electrical engineering and agriculture were carried out there. Furthermore, the SPARTAN platform was suspended, which in turn carried the so-called Inflatable Antenna Experiment (IAE). The $ 14 million IAE was an aluminum-coated plastic shell that was shaped into its actual shape - an antenna dish - using nitrogen gas. The ten-day operation was the first flight to be managed from takeoff to landing from the new Consolidated Control Center (CCC) in Houston.

STS-89

How Thomas got his next nomination is a story in itself: In mid-August 1996 NASA decided that astronaut Wendy Lawrence should replace Mike Foale as a regular guest on the Russian space station Mir in September 1997 . David Wolf was appointed as her substitute. In January 1998, he should have succeeded Mir as the last American. A little later, Thomas was appointed Wolf's replacement. Wolf and Thomas traveled to Russia in January 1997 to the “Star City” near Moscow to prepare for the long-term flight.

At the end of June 1997, an unmanned Progress freighter rammed the Mir station and inflicted serious damage. Although the outpost did not have to be evacuated by the crew, the incident had consequences. Extensive repair work was required. This also had an impact on the future crews, because now craftsmen were in demand. Together with the Russians, NASA came to the conclusion in August that Foale would be replaced by Wolf instead of Lawrence. There were two main reasons given for this: Lawrence did not fit in the Russian Orlan spacesuit to help with extraneous board work (EVAs) . In addition, she has no EVA experience. David Wolf had not left the shuttle on his first flight in 1993, but at least he had around 150 hours of training in the JSC's water tank. That is why NASA announced in mid-October that Andy Thomas should fly to Mir with STS-89 as the seventh and last American.

Thomas took off on his second space flight with STS-89 in late January 1998. Again it was the orbiter Endeavor who brought him to the Russian Mir space station as a mission specialist. After five days the orbiter was connected to the station, the STS-89 crew said goodbye, leaving Thomas behind. In return, David Wolf took his place and returned home to earth after almost 130 days. Thomas stayed on board for the next four months as a flight engineer as part of the Shuttle Mir program and worked with the Russian long-term crews of Soyuz TM-26 and Soyuz TM-27 . In June he was picked up again by STS-91. His 140 day flight was over. He has reported that the first few days of readjusting to gravity were very painful. During the first few days when he was walking, he had the feeling that he was taking part in a marathon without having trained beforehand. It took several weeks for him to regain his old condition.

STS-102

Thomas started preparing for his third flight into Earth orbit in May 2000. The mission to the International Space Station (ISS) lasted almost two weeks . STS-102 took place in March 2001 and was a crew exchange mission: ISS Expedition 2 was brought to the ISS and ISS Expedition 1 was taken back to Earth. In addition, the Leonardo logistics module was used to bring important equipment to the station. Hardly arrived, the two American crew members of the fresh ISS crew ( Helms and Voss ) got out to work on the Destiny module . Two days later, Thomas and his colleague Richards followed . During their six and a half hour outboard sojourn, which was the first for both of them, the two astronauts assembled a platform to hold cargo to Destiny and connected essential data cables together.

STS-114

Before Thomas was set up for his next space flight, he served from August 2001 as Deputy Head of the Astronauts Office at JSC. Two years later he was assigned to the STS-114 crew . Caused by the Columbia disaster in spring 2003, the shuttle missions were suspended for two and a half years. Therefore, STS-114 could not set off for the ISS until summer 2005. Originally, Thomas was not supposed to fly because the crew and mission profile looked different. When the "original crew" was announced in August 2001, the start was scheduled for November 2002. STS-114 was supposed to be a pure logistics flight bringing the 7th permanent crew to the International Space Station and the 6th crew back to Earth. When STS-114 finally left for the ISS at the end of July 2005, the crew change had been deleted from the flight plan and the focus was on testing the changes made to the shuttle system over the past two and a half years. The core crew remained unchanged, but for the three ISS guests Thomas moved up with two colleagues. This was very unexpected for him, as Andy had been the chief caretaker of the STS-107 families ten months earlier. The main task on his second visit to the ISS in four years was to coordinate the extraterrestrial work of his colleagues from inside the shuttle.

Thomas left NASA in February 2014.

Private

Thomas has been married to astronaut Shannon Walker since April 15, 2005 .

See also

Web links

Commons : Andy Thomas  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Robyn Shelton: Andy Thomas. In: Orlando Sentinel. July 10, 2005, accessed March 30, 2019 .
  2. ↑ NASA biography of Andrew Sydney Withiel Thomas , accessed June 19, 2014 (PDF).
personal data
SURNAME Thomas, Andrew Sydney Withiel
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Thomas, Andy
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American astronaut
DATE OF BIRTH December 18, 1951
PLACE OF BIRTH Adelaide , Australia