NEWSMAKERS
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
July 19, 2007
Contact: Robin Micket (860) 548-7894
Rensselaer at Hartford Alumnus to Make Second Flight on Space Shuttle
HARTFORD, CONN – Waterbury native Richard A. “Rick” Mastracchio, NASA astronaut and alumnus of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (Class of 1987, he earned an M.S. in Electrical Engineering at the Rensselaer Hartford Campus), will fly on the space shuttle Endeavour, scheduled to launch from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida on August 8, 2007. He will serve as a mission specialist for the planned 11-day space shuttle mission STS-118, which will travel to the International Space Station to continue space station construction by delivering a third starboard truss segment. Mastracchio will conduct several spacewalks or extravehicular activity (EVAs) during the mission.
This is the second space shuttle flight for the veteran astronaut who flew on the space shuttle Atlantis for mission STS-106 (September 8-20, 2000) and has logged over 283 hours in space. During the 12-day mission of STS-106, the crew successfully prepared the International Space Station for the arrival of the first permanent crew. Mastracchio served as a mission specialist and was the ascent/entry flight engineer, the primary robotic arm operator, and responsible for the transfer of items from the Space Shuttle to the Space Station.
A native of Waterbury, Connecticut, Mastracchio worked as an engineer at Hamilton Standard while earning his graduate degree at Rensselaer at Hartford. To learn more about Mastracchio and space shuttle mission STS-118, please visit the Web site of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) at: www.nasa.gov.
Rensselaer is proud to note that Mastracchio is one of three Rensselaer at Hartford alumni to fly in space. John L. “Jack” Swigert, Jr. (Class of 1965, M.S. Aerospace Science) flew on the Apollo 13 mission in April 1970 as the Command Module Pilot. Swigert died in 1982. He was posthumously inducted into the Rensselaer Hall of Fame in 2003. Dennis A. Tito (Class of 1964, M.S. Engineering Science), founder and CEO of Wilshire Associates Inc., became the world's first space tourist, traveling aboard a Soyuz spacecraft with a Russian crew to the International Space Station in April 2001. As a graduate student, Tito worked at United Aircraft in Windsor Locks while studying in the aerospace program.