Donald Pettit

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Donald Pettit
Donald Pettit
Country: United States
Organization: NASA
selected on May 1, 1996
(16th NASA Group)
Calls: 3 space flights
Start of the
first space flight: 		November 24, 2002
Landing of the
last space flight: 		July 1, 2012
Time in space: 369d 16h 42min
EVA inserts: 2
EVA total duration: 13h 17min
Space flights

Donald Roy "Don" Pettit (born April 20, 1955 , Silverton , Oregon , USA ) is an American astronaut .

Life

Pettit is native to the west coast of the United States. He was born and raised in Silverton, a small town around 30 kilometers east of the capital of the state of Oregon, Salem . After 1973, the Silverton Union High School ended, he went to Corvallis to Oregon State University . He studied chemical engineering at the College of Engineering and received a bachelor's degree in 1978 . He then enrolled at the University of Arizona in Tucson . This awarded him a doctorate in chemical process engineering in 1983.

After completing his doctorate, Pettit got a job as a scientist at Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL). Robert Oppenheimer founded the research facility in 1943 as Los Alamos Laboratory under the name "Project Y". The LANL is located in Los Alamos ( New Mexico ), is the US Department of Energy assumed and managed by the University of California operated. There Pettit carried out basic research. On parabolic flights, for example, on behalf of NASA, he investigated fluid displacements under reduced gravity or material science tasks. He collected gas samples from active volcanoes from the air , studied so-called noctilucent clouds and worked on explosive charges for weapons. From 1990 he was involved in the preparatory work for NASA's new objective, when he and the LANL's Synthesis Group put together the techniques required to return to the moon and explore Mars . Three years later he was part of the team working on a redesign of the planned US space station Freedom.

Astronaut activity

Pettit says the word explorer best describes him. He has been fascinated by space for as long as he can remember. At first he really only wanted to deal with chemical topics when he started his studies. That changed with his preparations for his doctorate in Arizona. It was at this point that he submitted his first application to the US space agency. In March 1984 he was invited to the Tenth Astronaut Group in Houston at the Johnson Space Center (JSC) for interviews and medical examinations. Also in April 1987 (12th group) and July 1994 (15th group) he was one of the final candidates, but was not selected.

Pettit was finally introduced to the public with NASA's 16th astronaut group in May 1996, which with a strength of 35 candidates formed the largest group since 1978. He was one of a total of 2,432 candidates who met the formal selection criteria. This resulted in 123 finalists who came to the JSC between October 1995 and February 1996 for the mandatory tests.

In mid-August 1996, the 16th group began their two-year basic training at the JSC. After that, Pettit was a full-fledged mission specialist and looked after the computer department of the astronauts office until his first flight appointment. Incidentally, Pettit's position as a member of the scientific staff at LANL has not been filled or is vacant. He is officially on leave for an indefinite period and continues to be part of the Los Alamos EPE (Energy and Process Engineering) team.

Pettit received his first assignment as an astronaut in March 2001 when he was named as a substitute for his colleague Donald Thomas. He was supposed to be the flight engineer of the sixth ISS long-term team, but was removed from the crew four months before the start for medical reasons. Pettit took his place and took off for the ISS on November 24, 2002 with STS-113 . Together with his commander Ken Bowersox - Bowersox and Pettit are not only work colleagues, they live house to house in Houston - and the Russian flight engineer Nikolai Budarin , Pettit lived and worked on board the space station until the beginning of May 2003. As a science officer, he was primarily responsible for the various experiments. He also operated the ISS robotic arm . Although not planned, he was given the opportunity to leave the ISS. Instead of Budarin, Pettit left the station with Bowersox in January and April 2003 for two exits . The STS-114 crew was supposed to be picked up again in March 2003. When the space shuttle Columbia crashed in February and all other shuttle flights were then suspended, further planning was changed. On May 4, 2003, the three-man crew returned to Earth with Soyuz TMA-1 .

In November 2007, Pettit received the confirmation for his second flight. He moved up for Joan Higginbotham as a mission specialist of STS-126 , because this left NASA. The launch of STS-126 on 15 November 2008. During the mission, Pettit invented a coffee cup made possible by its specific form, a drink in zero gravity without straw ( English zero-g coffee cup , from zero-g for gravity).

In October 2009, Pettit was nominated for a long-term stay on board the ISS. He worked as a flight engineer on Expeditions 30 and 31 from December 2011 to early July 2012 on board the ISS.

Awards and honors

In 2004 the asteroid (78578) Donpettit was named after him.

Private

Pettit is married and has two children.

See also

Web links

Commons : Donald Pettit  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Astronaut Donald Pettit on the evolution of the Zero G Coffee Cup. Retrieved October 31, 2019 .
  2. ↑ Astronaut Invents Zero-G Coffee Cup . Space.com, November 24, 2018.
  3. ^ NASA and its International Partners Assign Space Station Crews. In: Release 09-233. NASA, October 7, 2009, accessed October 14, 2009 .
  4. ↑ Minor Planet Circ. 52771
personal data
SURNAME Pettit, Donald
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Pettit, Donald Roy (full name); Pettit, Donald R.
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American astronaut
DATE OF BIRTH April 20, 1955
PLACE OF BIRTH Silverton , Oregon , United States