CU-Boulder alum and NASA astronaut Steve Swanson heading for space station University of Colorado Boulder alumnus and NASA astronaut Steve Swanson will blast off with two Russian crewmates for the International Space Station March 25, his third mission to the orbiting facility. But this time he will not be riding in the familiar confines of a NASA space shuttle -- the fleet was retired in 2011 -- but in a capsule atop a Soyuz TMA-12 rocket launching from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. Not only will he blast off from there, he is slated to land in the capsule, which is somewhat similar to a NASA Apollo capsule, on the steppe of Kazakhstan in September after spending roughly six months in space. Swanson, who earned a bachelor’s degree in engineering physics from CU-Boulder in 1983, will serve as flight engineer for Expedition 39, which already will be underway on the ISS when he arrives. In late May, Swanson, who considers Steamboat Springs, Colo., his hometown, will become space station commander as Expedition 40 begins. Swanson will be launched to the ISS along with cosmonauts Alexander Skvortsov and Oleg Artemyev of the Russian Federal Space Agency. “We’ve trained extensively and I’m confident I can do all of the tasks assigned to me on the space station,” Swanson said. “The difficult part is being away from my family and friends for a long period. I’ll miss them, but at the same time we will be very busy up there, which makes the time pass quickly.”
Posted on: Fri, 21 Mar 2014 11:50:39 +0000
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