spacetoday.net: NASA adds three to next shuttle mission

Posted: Sat, Nov 8, 2003, 9:02 AM ET (1402 GMT)
STS-107: launch (NASA/KSC)

NASA named three astronauts Friday to STS-114, the first post-Columbia shuttle mission, joining the original four astronauts on the crew. Andy Thomas, Wendy Lawrence, and Charles Camarda will join the crew of STS-114, currently scheduled for launch not earlier than September 2004. Thomas and Lawrence are veteran astronauts — Thomas spent several months on Mir in 1998 — while Camarda will be making his first flight. The three will be joined by the original four members of the crew: commander Eileen Collins, pilot James Kelly, and mission specialists Stephen Robinson and Soichi Noguchi. Those four were named to the crew in 2001, when STS-114 was planned to be an ISS crew rotation mission. Instead, the crew of the shuttle Atlantis will primarily test a number of new technologies and techniques designed to prevent another shuttle accident, as well as ferry a limited amount of supplies to the ISS.