Jul 15 2009
From The Space Library
The U.S. Senate confirmed retired U.S. Marine Corps general and former astronaut Charles F. Bolden Jr. as NASA’s twelfth Administrator, marking the first appointment of an African American as NASA’s Administrator. During his 34-year career with the Marine Corps, Bolden had spent 14 years as a member of NASA’s Astronaut Office, which he had joined in 1980. As an astronaut, he had traveled to orbit four times aboard the Space Shuttle, between 1986 and 1994. On two of those trips he had served as Commander of the Shuttle. His missions had included the deployment of the HST and the first joint U.S.-Russian Shuttle mission. While he was an astronaut, Bolden had fulfilled many technical assignments, serving as Astronaut Office Safety Officer; Technical Assistant to the Director of Flight Crew Operations; Special Assistant to the Director of JSC; Lead Astronaut for vehicle test and checkout at KSC ; Chief of the Safety Division at JSC, where he oversaw safety efforts for the return to flight after the 1986 Challenger accident; and Assistant Deputy Administrator at NASA Headquarters. In May 2006, NASA had inducted Bolden into the Astronaut Hall of Fame. The Senate also confirmed Lori B. Garver as NASA’s new Deputy Administrator. Like Bolden, Garver was returning to NASA for a second period of service. Between 1996 and 2001, she had served as Special Assistant to the NASA Administrator and Senior Policy Analyst for the Office of Policy and Plans, before becoming Associate Administrator of that office.
NASA, “Bolden and Garver Confirmed by U.S. Senate,” news release 09-165, 15 July 2009, http://www.nasa.gov/home/hqnews/2009/jul/HQ_09-165_Bolden_and_Garver.html (accessed 10 August 2011); Florida Today (Brevard, FL), “Bolden Confirmed as NASA Administrator,” 16 July 2009.
Space Shuttle Endeavour launched on STS-127 at 6:03 p.m. (EDT) from NASA’s KSC in Florida, on a 16-day mission to the ISS. The mission would include five spacewalks, deliver the final segment to the JAXA Kibo laboratory, and deliver a new crew member for the ISS. The launch was STS-127’s sixth attempt—NASA had aborted two earlier attempted launches of the mission in June, after poor weather and the discovery of potentially hazardous fuel leaks had caused three scrubs since 11 July. The crew was composed of Commander Mark L. Polansky; Pilot Douglas G. Hurley; and Mission Specialists Christopher J. Cassidy, Thomas H. Marshburn, David A. Wolf, Timothy L. Kopra, and CSA astronaut Julie Payette. Kopra would replace ISS crew member Koichi Wakata, who had been aboard the ISS for more than three months. Kopra would return to Earth with STS-128, which NASA had scheduled to launch in August 2009.
NASA, “NASA’s Shuttle Endeavour Launches To Complete Japanese Module,” news release 09-160, 15 July 2009, http://www.nasa.gov/home/hqnews/2009/jul/HQ_09-160_STS-127_Launches.html (accessed 10 August 2011); Jean-Louis Santini for Agence France-Presse, “Space Shuttle Endeavour Blasts Off from Cape Canaveral,” 16 July 2009.
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