Ukrainian American astronaut to realize her dream as space shuttle Atlantis lifts off (08/27/06)

Ukrainian American astronaut to realize her dream as space shuttle Atlantis lifts off

PARSIPPANY, N.J. - If all goes according to schedule, on Sunday, August 27, Heidemarie Stefanyshyn-Piper, commander in the U.S. Navy, will become the first Ukrainian American to fly in space. On that day she and her fellow crew members from the STS-115 mission will lift off in the space shuttle Atlantis.

Their mission is to resume construction of the International Space Station, which is the goal of remaining shuttle flights through the year 2010, when the spacecraft are retired. It will be the 116th space shuttle flight for NASA and the 27th flight for Atlantis.

Atlantis is to lift off on the first day of the launch window that extends until September 13. The countdown for the launch officially begins on August 24 - which, coincidentally, is Ukrainian Independence Day. Then, on August 27 at 4:30 p.m., the shuttle will lift off.

The STS-115 crew is led by Commander Brent W. Jett, Jr. and includes Pilot Christopher J. Ferguson, and Mission Specialists Joseph R. Tanner, Daniel C. Burbank and Stefanyshyn-Piper, as well as Steven G. MacLean, a representative of the Canadian Space Agency.

The 11-day mission will focus on installation of a 17.5-ton segment of the station's truss backbone, which includes two large solar arrays that will provide 25 percent of the total power-generation capability of the International Space Station once it is completed. STS-115 is the 19th U.S. flight to the station.

Cmdr. Stefanyshyn-Piper, 43, a member of the 1996 astronaut class, hails from St. Paul., Minn., where she was active in the Ukrainian community of the Twin Cities, including the Minneapolis branch of Plast Ukrainian Scouting Organization, the local Ukrainian dance ensemble, the school of Ukrainian studies and St. Constantine Ukrainian Catholic Church.

Her father, the late Michael Stefanyshyn, was born in Ukraine, while her mother, Adelheid, was a German immigrant. Thus, Cmdr. Stefanyshyn-Piper speaks fluent Ukrainian and German.

She holds bachelor's and master's degrees in mechanical engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and received her commission from the Navy ROTC program at MIT in June 1985. She completed training as a Navy diving officer and salvage officer, and later qualified as a surface warfare officer.

Cmdr. Stefanyshyn-Piper was named an astronaut candidate in April 1996 and reported to the Johnson Space Center that August. She completed NASA's astronaut training program in April 1998.

On February 7, 2002 - her 39th birthday - she learned that she was being assigned to STS-115, which was scheduled for launch in the spring of 2003. When the Columbia accident happened on February 1, 2003, her mission - indeed, all NASA missions - were put on hold.

Since then, she has been an astronaut in waiting.

Back in 2002 Cmdr. Stefanyshyn-Piper had told The Ukrainian Weekly that her dream was to do a space walk. It appears she will now realize that dream since she is scheduled to do two spacewalks, or Extra-Vehicular Activities, as a truss section is secured to the International Space Station and additional solar panels are deployed.

In a pre-flight interview found on the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) website, Cmdr. Stefanyshyn-Piper speaks of her ethnic background, noting that both of her parents came from Europe:

"My mother came from Germany and my father's from Ukraine. They came to America and they believed in the American dream. They believed that, OK, they're going to, you know, come here, raise a family, and that the kids would grow up and we would all go to college and become successful and find our life in this new country. And I think, just having that in the back of your mind and always growing up that way, you're always going to strive for something. My parents wanted all of us to have a good education; school was very important. That's why they sent us all to Catholic schools thinking that we would get a better education there. And I think that it probably helped going to a small, private school. It allowed me to focus on my studies. And the fact that they always wanted us to go to college just led me to think, OK, when I graduated from high school I was going to go to college, and that's what I did. I think that if I didn't have that, that drive to always improve and to try to get something better, then I wouldn't be sitting here today."

In that same interview she offered her views on human exploration of space. "To me, exploring space is just a natural progression of where humans are going. ... To me, exploration makes sense because we're always looking at what's the next thing out there - what else can we learn, and how can we go there. Maybe we can learn something that we can bring back here and help some of the problems we have on Earth."

One of about 100 American astronauts, Cmdr. Stefanyshyn-Piper is married to Glenn A. Piper; they have one son. The family lives in the Houston area, and Ms. Stefanyshyn-Piper has tried to maintain her Ukrainian community contacts via the Ukrainian American Cultural Club of Houston.

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