Air Force Col. Eric Boe shows his Gen. Carl A. Spaatz Award coin.
Photo courtesy of NASA
Kylie Clem
Johnson Space Center, Houston
WASHINGTON, D.C. – Air Force Col. Eric A. Boe, the Civil Air Patrol member who took his Gen. Carl A. Spaatz Award coin into space during his first flight as a space shuttle pilot last year, has been assigned to reprise that role on the last scheduled space shuttle mission, targeted to launch in September 2010.
The eight-day mission, designated STS-133, will carry a pressurized logistics module to the International Space Station.
Boe was the pilot of STS-126 from Nov. 14-30, 2008. He first soloed in an airplane as a Georgia Wing cadet in a CAP encampment and earned the Spaatz award, the highest achievement for a CAP cadet, in July 1983.
Now a senior member with the Florida Wing’s Eglin Composite Squadron, Boe has a bachelor's degree from the U.S. Air Force Academy and a master's degree from the Georgia Institute of Technology.
Veteran shuttle commander and retired Air Force Col. Steven W. Lindsey will command STS-133. Mission specialists are shuttle mission veteran Air Force Col. Benjamin Alvin Drew Jr. and long-duration spaceflight veterans Michael R. Barratt, Army Col. Timothy L. Kopra and Nicole P. Stott.
Lindsey is chief of the Astronaut Office. Long-duration spaceflight veteran and former space station commander Peggy A. Whitson – a flight engineer aboard the station during Expedition 5 in 2002 and the commander of Expedition 16 in 2007-2008 -- has been named his successor when he transitions in October to training for his spaceflight.
Lindsey will be making his fifth shuttle flight. He served as the pilot of STS-87 in 1997 and STS-95 in 1998, then commanded STS-104 in 2001 and STS-121 in 2006.
Drew flew as a mission specialist on STS-118 in 2007 and is director of operations at the Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center in Star City, Russia. He has two bachelor's degrees and a master's degree from the Air Force Academy and a master's degree from Embry Riddle University.
Barratt, a medical doctor is on his first mission, aboard the space station as a flight engineer for Expeditions 19 and 20. He launched to the station on a Russian Soyuz spacecraft March 26 and is due to return to Earth on the same Soyuz on Oct. 11. He has a bachelor's degree from the University of Washington, a master's degree from Wright State University in Dayton, Ohio, and a doctorate of medicine from Northwestern University.
Kopra just completed his first spaceflight as a flight engineer aboard the space station for Expedition 20. He launched July 15 on shuttle mission STS-127 and landed aboard shuttle mission STS-128 on Sept. 11. He has a bachelor's degree from the U.S. Military Academy and master's degrees from the Georgia Institute of Technology and the U.S. Army War College.
Stott is in the midst of her first mission as a flight engineer aboard the station with Barratt for Expeditions 20 and 21. She launched aboard STS-128 on Aug. 28 and is due to return at the end of STS-129, targeted for launch Nov. 12. She has a bachelor's degree from Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University and a master's degree from the University of Central Florida.
For complete astronaut biographical information, visit http://www.jsc.nasa.gov/Bios.
Video of the STS-133 crew members will air on NASA Television's Video File. For downlink and scheduling information and links to streaming video, visit http://www.nasa.gov/ntv.
For more information about NASA's Space Shuttle Program, visit http://www.nasa.gov/shuttle.
