STS-115
Space Shuttle Atlantis / OV-104
United Space Alliance
Crew
Brent W. Jett Jr.
- Birthday: 10/05/1958
- Role: Commander
- Nationality: American
- First Flight: 01/11/1996
- Last Flight: 09/09/2006
Brent Ward Jett Jr. is a retired American naval officer and aviator, test pilot, aerospace and aeronautical engineer, and NASA astronaut.
Christopher Ferguson
- Birthday: 09/01/1961
- Role: Pilot
- Nationality: American
- First Flight: 09/09/2006
- Last Flight: 07/08/2011
Christopher J. Ferguson is a Boeing commercial astronaut and a retired United States Navy Captain and NASA astronaut. He was the pilot of Space Shuttle Atlantis on his first mission to space, STS-115, which launched on September 9, 2006 and returned to Earth on September 21, 2006. He then commanded STS-126 aboard Space Shuttle Endeavour. In 2011, he was assigned as commander of STS-135, which was the final mission of the space shuttle program.
On December 9, 2011, he retired from NASA and is now currently director of Crew and Mission Operations for Boeing’s Commercial Crew Program. In August 2018, Ferguson was assigned to the first test flight of the Boeing CST-100 Starliner.
Heidemarie Stefanyshyn-Piper
- Birthday: 02/07/1963
- Role: Mission Specialist
- Nationality: American
- First Flight: 09/09/2006
- Last Flight: 11/15/2008
Heidemarie Martha Stefanyshyn-Piper is an American Naval officer, engineer, and a former NASA astronaut. She has achieved the rank of Captain in the United States Navy. She is also a qualified and experienced salvage officer. Her major salvage projects include de-stranding the tanker Exxon Houston off the coast of Barbers Point, on the island of Oahu, Hawaii, and developing the plan for the Peruvian Navy salvage of the Peruvian submarine Pacocha.
Stefanyshyn-Piper has received numerous honors and awards, such as the Meritorious Service Medal, two Navy Commendation Medals, and two Navy Achievement Medals. She has flown on two Space Shuttle missions, STS-115 and STS-126, during which she completed five spacewalks totaling 33 hours and 42 minutes. As of 2018, she ranks 39th on the all-time list of space walkers by duration.
Steve MacLean
- Birthday: 12/14/1954
- Role: Mission Specialist
- Nationality: Canadian
- First Flight: 10/22/1992
- Last Flight: 09/09/2006
Steven Glenwood MacLean FRCGS (born December 14, 1954) is a Canadian astronaut.
MacLean served as a Mission Specialist on STS-115, which launched on September 9, 2006, and returned on September 21, 2006. He became the first Canadian to operate the robotic arm Canadarm2. On September 13, he performed his first spacewalk, a 7-hour EVA to activate the solar panels on the P3/4 truss – the second Canadian to do so, after Chris Hadfield.
Daniel C. Burbank
- Birthday: 07/27/1961
- Role: Mission Specialist
- Nationality: American
- First Flight: 09/08/2000
- Last Flight: 11/14/2011
Daniel Christopher Burbank is a retired American astronaut and a veteran of two Space Shuttle missions. Burbank, a Captain in the United States Coast Guard, is the second Coast Guard astronaut after Bruce Melnick.
Burbank was born in Manchester, Connecticut, and raised in Tolland, Connecticut, where he graduated from Tolland High School. He attended Fairfield University his freshman year before transferring to the United States Coast Guard Academy, where he earned his commission in 1985. In 1987, he went through flight training and became an instructor pilot, serving at various Coast Guard stations at Coast Guard Air Station Elizabeth City, Coast Guard Air Station Cape Cod, and Coast Guard Air Station Sitka.
Joseph R. Tanner
- Birthday: 01/21/1950
- Role: Mission Specialist
- Nationality: American
- First Flight: 11/03/1994
- Last Flight: 09/09/2006
Joseph Richard “Joe” Tanner is an American instructor at the University of Colorado Boulder, mechanical engineer, a former naval officer and aviator, and a former NASA astronaut. He was born in Danville, Illinois. He is unusual among astronauts as he did not have a background in flight test nor did he earn any advanced academic degrees. Typically those who did not do military flight test have an M.D. or Ph.D., if not a master’s, whereas Tanner’s path to becoming an astronaut followed operational military flying and then into NASA for operational jet training before being selected into the NASA Astronaut Corps in 1992, following an unsuccessful application in 1987.
Mission
STS-115
- Type: Human Exploration
- Orbit: Low Earth Orbit
- Launch Cost: $450,000,000
STS-115 was a Space Shuttle mission to the International Space Station (ISS) flown by Space Shuttle Atlantis. It was the first assembly mission to the ISS after the Columbia disaster, following the two successful Return to Flight missions, STS-114 and STS-121. STS-115 launched from Pad 39-B at the Kennedy Space Center on 9 September 2006 at 11:14:55 EDT (15:14:55 UTC). The mission is also referred to as ISS-12A by the ISS program. The mission delivered the second port-side truss segment (ITS P3/P4), a pair of solar arrays (2A and 4A), and batteries. A total of three spacewalks were performed, during which the crew connected the systems on the installed trusses, prepared them for deployment, and did other maintenance work on the station.
Location
Rocket
National Aeronautics and Space Administration Space Shuttle
The Space Shuttle is a retired, partially reusable low Earth orbital spacecraft system operated from 1981 to 2011 by the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) as part of the Space Shuttle program. Its official program name was Space Transportation System (STS). Five complete Space Shuttle orbiter vehicles were built and flown on a total of 135 missions from 1981 to 2011.