Astronaut Janice Voss DiesFebruary 7, 2012
RELEASE J12-003 Nicole Cloutier-Lemasters Johnson Space Center, Houston
HOUSTON - NASA astronaut Janice Voss passed away from cancer overnight. One of only six women who have flown in space five times, Voss' career was highlighted by her work and dedication to scientific payloads and exploration.
"As the payload commander of two space shuttle missions, Janice was responsible for paving the way for experiments that we now perform on a daily basis on the International Space Station," said Peggy Whitson, chief of the Astronaut Office. "By improving the way scientists are able to analyze their data, and establishing the experimental methods and hardware necessary to perform these unique experiments, Janice and her crew ensured that our space station would be the site of discoveries that we haven't even imagined."
"During the last few years, Janice continued to lead our office's efforts to provide the best possible procedures to crews operating experiments on the station today," Whitson added. "Even more than Janice's professional contributions, we will miss her positive outlook on the world and her determination to make all things better."
Voss began her career with NASA in 1973 while a student at Purdue University. She returned to NASA in 1977 to work as an instructor, teaching entry guidance and navigation to space shuttle crews. After completing her doctorate in 1987, she worked within the aerospace industry until she was selected as an astronaut in 1990.
Voss' first spaceflight mission was STS-57 in 1993, the first flight of the Spacehab module. She next flew on STS-63 in 1995, a mission to the Mir space station, and third flight of Spacehab. She also flew as a payload commander on STS-83 in 1997 with the Microgravity Science Laboratory, but the mission was cut short due to problems with one of the orbiter's three fuel power generation units. Voss, the crew and MSL flew again as the STS-94 MSL-1 Spacelab mission, focused on materials and combustion science research in microgravity.
Her last mission was STS-99 in 2000, the Shuttle Radar Topography Mission, which mapped more than 47 million square miles of the Earth's land surface at unprecedented resolution levels. In total, Voss spent more than 49 days in space.
From 2004 to 2007, Voss served as the science director for the Kepler spacecraft at NASA's Ames Research Center. Voss most recently served as the payloads lead of the Astronaut Office's Station Branch.For Voss' complete biography, please visit:
http://www.jsc.nasa.gov/Bios/htmlbios/voss-jan.htmlhttps://www.nasa.gov/centers/johnson/news/releases/2012/J12-003.htmlJanice Voss, Shuttle Astronaut and Scientist, Dies at 55By Dennis Hevesi Feb. 9, 2012
Janice Voss before duty as payload commander for a mission of the Shuttle Columbia.Credit...NASAJanice Voss, a space shuttle astronaut and scientist who explored the behavior of fire in weightlessness, how plants adapt to extraterrestrial flight and an array of other phenomena while logging nearly 19 million miles circling Earth, died on Monday at a hospital in Scottsdale, Ariz. She was 55 and lived in Houston.
The cause was cancer, her mother, Louise Voss, said.
Dr. Voss was one of only six women to have gone into space five times. In her first flight, aboard the Endeavour in June 1993, she helped conduct experiments during what was also the maiden voyage of the Spacehab module, a 9,600-pound pressurized laboratory mounted in the orbiter’s payload bay. Spacehab was the first commercial laboratory launched into space, its primary purpose to offer industrial and academic researchers access to space.
Dr. Voss next flew on the Discovery in February 1995, a historic NASA mission in which a shuttle rendezvoused with a Russian space station, Mir, for the first time. During the mission Dr. Voss maneuvered the shuttle’s robot arm to grasp an astronomy satellite being deployed.
Dr. Voss’s next two flights were the only time an entire crew was launched twice to achieve the same mission. On July 1, 1997, the Columbia lifted off from Cape Canaveral four months after it had been called back from space because fuel cells on board had malfunctioned.
On that second flight, with Dr. Voss in charge of experiments as payload commander, the crew set more than 140 small fires in insulated chambers to test the behavior of fire in weightlessness. The tests were intended to gain a better understanding of how fire and heat work on Earth and also to address safety concerns after a 90-second fire flared aboard the Mir station five months earlier. She also coordinated experiments on how plants react in space, using a greenhouse containing about 50 spinach, clover, sage and periwinkle plants.
In her last mission, in February 2000 — once again aboard the Endeavour — Dr. Voss worked on the Shuttle Radar Topography Mission, which mapped Earth’s land surface at unprecedented resolution levels.
Logging a total of 49 days in space in her NASA career, twice as payload commander, she also did research on fluid physics and material science (growing crystals and developing metal alloys, for example), as well as medical tests to determine the effects of microgravity on the human body.
On the ground in recent years, at the Johnson Space Center in Houston, Dr. Voss oversaw astronauts’ training in conducting experiments in space. One trainee was Cady Coleman, who in May returned from six months on the International Space Station.
“We’re doing experiments 12 hours a day, and it’s like Christmas Eve for parents trying to put together toys that they thought would be no problem,” Ms. Coleman said on Wednesday. “Janice’s job was to make sure that the astronaut — whether he was a pilot or an engineer or a former policeman — could follow those directions. She was great at it, so clear, precise.”
Janice Elaine Voss was born in South Bend, Ind., on Oct. 8, 1956, to James and Louise Hinds Voss. Besides her parents, Dr. Voss is survived by three sisters, Linda Voss, Karen Voss and Victoria Fransham.
She was just 16 and a freshman at Purdue University when she first worked for NASA, as an intern at the Johnson Space Center. After receiving her bachelor’s degree in engineering science in 1975, she returned to the center to train crews in navigation and entry guidance. She went on to earn a master’s in electrical engineering, in 1977, and a doctorate in aeronautics and astronautics, in 1987, both at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
It all started, her mother said, when Janice was 6 and picked up a book at the local library, “A Wrinkle in Time” by Madeleine L’Engle — a fantasy in which one of the main characters is a scientist who happens to be a woman.https://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/10/science/space/janice-voss-shuttle-astronaut-and-scientist-dies-at-55.html
Wątek: Janice Elaine Voss (1956-2012) (Przeczytany 6360 razy)