Heidemarie Stefanyshyn-Piper

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Heidemarie Stefanyshyn-Piper
Heidemarie Stefanyshyn-Piper
Country: United States
Organization: NASA
selected on May 1, 1996
(16th NASA Group)
Calls: 2 space flights
Start of the
first space flight: 		September 9, 2006
Landing of the
last space flight: 		November 30, 2008
Time in space: 27d 15h 36min
EVA inserts: 5
EVA total duration: 33h 42min
retired on July 2009
Space flights

Heidemarie Martha "Heide" Stefanyshyn-Piper (* February 7, 1963 as Heidemarie Martha Stefanyshyn in Saint Paul , Minnesota , USA ) is a former American astronaut and naval officer in the United States Navy ( captain ).

education

Stefanyshyn-Piper grew up in Saint Paul, the capital of the US state Minnesota. She is the child of immigrants: her father Michael Stefanyshyn, who has since passed away, was a native of Ukraine , while her mother Adelheid has German roots. Stefanyshyn-Piper comes from a religious family; she attended the private Catholic Cretin-Derham Hall High School in Saint Paul and was a member of the Ukrainian scout organization "Plast". After graduating from high school in 1980, she studied mechanical engineering with the support of the US Navy at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology , graduating with a bachelor's degree in 1984 and a master's degree in 1985 .

Military career

After her training, Stefanyshyn-Piper began her active service in the Navy. She trained as a marine and rescue diver at the Naval Diving and Salvage Training Center in Panama City ( Florida ). For a few years she then worked in the field of repair and salvage of ships. On the rescue cruiser "USS Grapple", which was put into service in November 1986, she took part in an advanced training course to become a combat diver. During this time she was involved in two salvage missions that caused an international sensation: At the end of August 1988, the Peruvian submarine "BAP Pacocha", which was sailing on the surface, was rammed by a Japanese fishing trawler off the home coast and sank shortly before reaching its destination port within 5 minutes. It took the marine divers of Peru and the United States 11 months to recover the submarine. At the beginning of March 1989 the oil tanker "Exxon Houston" ran aground off the coast of Hawaii . Over 440,000 liters of crude oil leaked off the island of Oahu before the damaged vessel could be towed free.

Stefanyshyn-Piper worked from September 1994 at the Naval Sea Systems Command in Arlington ( Virginia ) and coordinated the recovery and repair activities for the American Navy.

Astronaut activity

Her professional goal was a naval pilot. However, a failed eye test caused her to fail. After a decade as a diver, she applied to NASA - with success.

Stefanyshyn-Piper belonged to the 16th astronaut group at NASA, which with a strength of 35 candidates formed the largest group since the legendary "Thirty Five New Guys" of 1978. From 2432 candidates who met the eligibility criteria will 123 finalists were born between October 1995 and February 1996, the Johnson Space Center (JSC) in Houston ( Texas visited) to lead to job interviews and to be medically examined. Stefanyshyn-Piper presented himself with the second group of finalists to the selection committee in early November 1995.

In mid-August 1996, the 16th group began their two-year basic training at the JSC. After that, Stefanyshyn-Piper was a full-fledged mission specialist. Initially, she was assigned to the support teams and helped the shuttle crews to board the shuttle on the launch day. Then she was the contact person in the astronauts office for potential experimenters planning experiments on board the ISS.

STS-115

In February 2002 Stefanyshyn-Piper received her first mission order for a space flight. After more than four years of preparation and waiting, she started on the STS-115 mission on September 9, 2006 . The main payload of the Atlantis was the 16-ton element P3 / P4 , with which the space station was expanded. During the mission, Stefanyshyn-Piper and Joe Tanner undertook two space missions with a total duration of 13 hours. They mounted the P3 / P4 on the P1 carrier , made all the necessary connections and activated a cooling system. The flight ended after 12 days.

STS-126

On November 15, 2008, Stefanyshyn-Piper took off on its second space flight with STS-126 . On this flight, she took on three spacecraft missions. The mission ended with the Endeavor space shuttle landing at Edwards Air Force Base on November 30, 2008.

The lost tool bag

During her first outboard outing on November 18, 2008, Stefanyshyn-Piper began working on the Solar Alpha Rotary Joint when she noticed that a grease gun had leaked in her tool bag. According to the instructions from the control center, she wiped it up with a cloth, whereupon the bag came off and floated away into space. The bag, worth about $ 100,000, was visible from Earth for eight and a half months until it entered the Earth's atmosphere west of Mexico and burned up on August 3.

According to NASA

Stefanyshyn-Piper left NASA in July 2009 and returned to Naval Sea Systems Command.

family

Stefanyshyn-Piper is married and has one son.

See also

Web links and sources

Commons : Heidemarie Stefanyshyn-Piper  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Nothing lost in space - this time . November 21, 2008 ( bbc.co.uk [accessed February 17, 2020]).
  2. ↑ Tariq Malik August 03, 2009: Tool Bag Lost In Space Meets Fiery End. Retrieved February 17, 2020 .
personal data
SURNAME Stefanyshyn-Piper, Heidemarie
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Stefanyshyn-Piper, Heath (nickname); Stefanyshyn-Piper, Heidemarie Martha (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American astronaut
DATE OF BIRTH February 7, 1963
PLACE OF BIRTH Saint Paul , Minnesota