STS-119

Lee Archambault

• Birthday: 08/25/1960
• Role: Commander
• Nationality: American
• First Flight: 06/08/2007
• Last Flight: 03/15/2009

Lee Joseph “Bru” Archambault is an American test pilot and former NASA astronaut. He has logged over 4,250 flight hours in more than 30 different aircraft. Archambault is married with three children. His hobbies include bicycling, weightlifting, and playing ice hockey. Archambault has received numerous awards and honors throughout his life. He has also flown two Space Shuttle missions, as pilot of STS-117 in 2007 and as commander of STS-119 in 2009. Archambault left NASA in 2013 after a 15-year career with the agency in order to become a test pilot for Sierra Nevada Corporation on their Dream Chaser orbital spaceplane project.

Dominic A. Antonelli

• Birthday: 08/23/1967
• Role: Pilot
• Nationality: American
• First Flight: 03/15/2009
• Last Flight: 05/14/2010

Dominic Anthony “Tony” Antonelli is a retired NASA astronaut.

Richard R. Arnold

• Birthday: 11/26/1963
• Role: Mission Specialist
• Nationality: American
• First Flight: 03/15/2009
• Last Flight: 03/21/2018

Richard Robert “Ricky” Arnold II is an American educator and a NASA astronaut. He flew on Space Shuttle mission STS-119, which launched March 15, 2009 and delivered the final set of solar arrays to the International Space Station. He launched again in 2018 to the ISS, onboard Soyuz MS-08.

John L. Phillips

• Birthday: 04/15/1951
• Role: Mission Specialist
• Nationality: American
• First Flight: 04/19/2001
• Last Flight: 03/15/2009

John Lynch Phillips is a NASA astronaut. Phillips is also a Naval Aviator and retired captain, United States Navy Reserve. Phillips has received numerous awards and special honors. He is a National Merit Scholar, graduated 2nd in his class of 906 people at the U.S. Naval Academy in 1972. Phillips has also been awarded the NASA Space Flight Medal, NASA Distinguished Service Medal, the Gagarin Medal and several others. Phillips has logged over 4,400 flight hours and 250 aircraft carrier landings, flying the A-7 Corsair II carrier-based light attack aircraft while on active duty in the Regular Navy and subsequently during his time as a Navy Reservist from 1982 to 2002. At the time of his retirement, Phillips had retained the rank of captain.

Joseph M. Acaba

• Birthday: 05/17/1967
• Role: Mission Specialist
• Nationality: American
• First Flight: 03/15/2009
• Last Flight: 09/12/2017

Joseph Michael “Joe” Acaba is an American educator, hydrogeologist, and NASA astronaut. In May 2004 he became the first person of Puerto Rican heritage to be named as a NASA astronaut candidate, when he was selected as a member of NASA Astronaut Training Group 19. He completed his training on February 10, 2006 and was assigned to STS-119, which flew from March 15 to March 28, 2009 to deliver the final set of solar arrays to the International Space Station. Acaba served as a Flight Engineer aboard the International Space Station, having launched on May 15, 2012. He arrived at the space station on May 17 and returned to Earth on September 17, 2012. Acaba returned to the International Space Station in 2017 as a member of Expedition 53/54.

Steven Swanson

• Birthday: 12/03/1960
• Role: Mission Specialist
• Nationality: American
• First Flight: 06/08/2007
• Last Flight: 03/25/2014

Steven Ray Swanson is an American Engineer and a retired NASA astronaut. He is married and has three children. He has received numerous awards and honors. These include the NASA Exceptional Achievement Medal and the JSC Certificate of Accommodation and many others. Prior to becoming a NASA astronaut, Swanson worked for GTE in Phoenix, Arizona, as a software engineer. Swanson has flown two shuttle flights, STS-117 and STS-119. He has logged over 4,700 hours in space and completed four spacewalks totaling 26 hours and 14 minutes. Swanson has also served in other roles at NASA, such as a CAPCOM for both International Space Station and Space Shuttle missions.

Koichi Wakata

• Birthday: 08/01/1963
• Role: Mission Specialist
• Nationality: Japanese
• First Flight: 01/11/1996
• Last Flight: 10/05/2022

Koichi Wakata (若田 光一 Wakata Kōichi, born 1 August 1963) is a Japanese engineer and a JAXA astronaut. Wakata is a veteran of four NASA Space Shuttle missions, a Russian Soyuz mission, and a long-duration stay on the International Space Station. During a nearly two-decade career in spaceflight, he has logged more than eleven months in space. During Expedition 39, he became the first Japanese commander of the International Space Station. Wakata flew on the Soyuz TMA-11M/Expedition 38/Expedition 39 long duration spaceflight from 7 November 2013 to 13 May 2014. During this spaceflight he was accompanied by Kirobo, the first humanoid robot astronaut.

STS-119

• Type: Human Exploration
• Orbit: Low Earth Orbit
• Launch Cost: $450,000,000

STS-119 (ISS assembly flight 15A) was a space shuttle mission to the International Space Station (ISS) which was flown by Space Shuttle Discovery during March 2009. It delivered and assembled the fourth starboard Integrated Truss Segment (S6), and the fourth set of solar arrays and batteries to the station.

Launch Complex 39A

Kennedy Space Center, FL, USA

Launch Complex 39A has witnessed the launch of 173 rockets, including 172 orbital launch attempts, while Kennedy Space Center, FL, USA, has been the site for 231 rocket launches.

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.

United Space Alliance

United Space Alliance (USA) is a spaceflight operations company. USA is a joint venture which was established in August 1995 as a Limited Liability Company (LLC), equally owned by Boeing and Lockheed Martin.