As seen on our News Tab, NASA officially announced the crew of Expedition 14 on Tuesday. The crew, which will be the next one rotated in to live aboard the International Space Station, will consist of mission commander Michael Lopez-Alegria, Russian cosmonaut Mikhail Tyurin serving as flight engineer, and Sunita “Sunny” Williams (formerly Pandya) who will also serve as a flight engineer.

Williams will join Expedition 14 in progress and serve as a flight engineer, after traveling to the station on space shuttle mission STS-116. This will be Williams’s first space flight.

Selected as an astronaut in 1992, Lopez-Alegria flew his first shuttle mission, STS-73, in 1995 and later visited the station on shuttle missions STS-92 in 2000 and STS-113 in 2002, conducting five spacewalks during the station assembly complex. He has logged more than 42 days in space, including 34 hours spacewalking. Lopez-Alegria is a graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy and received a Master of Science degree from the Naval Postgraduate School.

Williams was selected as an astronaut in 1998. She also is a graduate of the Naval Academy and received a Master of Science degree from the Florida Institute of Technology. Williams was designated a Naval aviator in 1989 and graduated from the Naval Test Pilot School in 1993. She has logged more than 2,770 flight hours in 30 different types of aircraft. At NASA, Williams has served as a liaison in Moscow supporting Expedition 1 and has supported station robotics work.

Tyurin was selected as a cosmonaut in 1993 and was a flight engineer aboard the station for Expedition 3 in 2001. He has spent 125 days in space. Tyurin is a graduate of the Moscow Aviation Institute. [Link]

Attentive SM readers will remember that I have covered Williams in a prior post. She is a Navy test pilot who specialized in rotary-winged vehicles (helicopters). Additionally, she is only the second rookie (Edward “Mike” Fincke of Expedition 9 having been the first) to be assigned as an ISS crew member. This is a big deal since in the shuttle era you’d never have more than one or two rookies on a given flight. Astronauts aboard the ISS have almost every minute of every day tasked out. Experience is key to making sure that everything keeps running smoothly up there. Williams has been serving as the astronaut liaison to Moscow so she is used to working with the Russians and is probably fluent in Russian. You will also note that with the current backlog of flightless astronauts, Williams has had to wait eight years for her first shot. Lesson: Get picked up by the Corp when you are still pretty young.

Every mission patch (like the one on the right) tells a story. I haven’t completely translated this one yet (I’m working on it) but the red dot may represent Mars, probably as a reminder that they are keeping an eye on the ultimate prize.

Unlike the other two astronauts who are scheduled to ride to the ISS aboard a Russian built Soyuz spacecraft in September, Williams will ride up and join them on STS-116 (a Space Shuttle flight) in December of this year. NASA engineers are currently busy assessing and fixing the external tank’s foam problems. Foam dislodged form the ET during ascent was the problem that ultimately doomed the Columbia.

Despite concerns raised by some engineers, NASA said Friday that it plans to put off any further design changes to the shuttle’s external fuel tank until after Discovery’s flight in July.

The space agency had been considering changing the design of the tank’s so-called ice frost ramps to stop insulating foam from falling off. The ice frost ramps are wedge-shaped brackets that hold in place the tank’s pressurization lines.

NASA already has removed 37 pounds (16 1/2 kilograms) of foam from two other areas on the tank — a modification that space shuttle program manager Wayne Hale described as “the largest aerodynamic change we have made to the space shuttle launch system since it first flew.” [Link]

Last year Asian Week had a little bit more about Williams’ background:

Sunita Williams’ boundless energy spills over into her speech. She has an unmistakable quick New England clip from growing up in Needham, Mass., that suggests she can’t sit still. She was not quite 4 years old when she watched the 1969 Apollo 11 moonwalk on a black-and-white television set. The daughter of Dr. Deepak and Mrs. Bonnie Pandya grew up with models of hard work and dedication injected with big doses of outdoor adventure.

Williams’ father was a general practitioner at the VA hospital and her mother a dedicated homemaker who brought out the best in a multicultural household. “My father is Hindu so he’s vegetarian. My mother, who is [an] American of Yugoslavian descent, would cook two different meals each day — one Indian and one meat and potatoes — so I got to eat a little bit of both and a good variety. I still like spicier food.

“My father was very traditional but at the same time adventurous,” she continued. “He was orphaned and so is very accepting of others’ goals and trying new things. Our family grew up with camping and hiking.”

Williams is currently scheduled to return to Earth in June of next year aboard the Endeavour (STS-118).

Let’s hope everything runs according to schedule and that Williams soon becomes the third person of Indian origin, and the second Indian American woman, to fly in space. I personally hope the fourth one is male .

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