From starry-eyed dreamer to monitoring activities in the stars — such was the heavenly endeavour charted by U of C grad Laura Lucia during the recent mission of the space shuttle Endeavour.
As the lead robotics mission planner, Lucia worked in NASA’s Mission Control Centre in Houston during Endeavour’s 13-day, 8.5-million km orbit of the earth, providing eyes, ears and advice to astronauts as they serviced the International Space Station and completed three spacewalks using the robotic arm.
“As a child, anytime I saw anything associated with NASA my heart would just leap,” the 31-year-old said today, one day after the shuttle’s safe return to earth.
“It’s a long road to get there but it’s those 13 days of supporting the mission that is the payback — that’s what makes all the stress and hard work worthwhile.”
In the three-year buildup to the mission, the 1999 U of C engineering grad developed the procedures for installing new pieces of robotic hardware and trained the astronauts in these functions using virtual simulation labs.
After the launch, she was the resident expert in terms of assessing the health and performance of the robotic arm and acted an on-earth support for the three spacewalks, a Canadian record, embarked upon by fellow Canuck Dave Williams.
“Everything that’s done on the space station is very highly choreographed and very rehearsed,” said Lucia.
“I’d trained so closely with these astronauts, so it as really exciting to see the culmination of something we’d rehearsed over and over again.”
The tense buildup and arduous prep work weren’t devoid of humour, however.
“One of the things we did before the mission was write a Canadian version of the procedures, with lots of ‘eh’s’,” chuckled Lucia.
Discuss Add this link to... Bury
As the lead robotics mission planner, Lucia worked in NASA’s Mission Control Centre in Houston during Endeavour’s 13-day, 8.5-million km orbit of the earth, providing eyes, ears and advice to astronauts as they serviced the International Space Station and completed three spacewalks using the robotic arm.
“As a child, anytime I saw anything associated with NASA my heart would just leap,” the 31-year-old said today, one day after the shuttle’s safe return to earth.
“It’s a long road to get there but it’s those 13 days of supporting the mission that is the payback — that’s what makes all the stress and hard work worthwhile.”
In the three-year buildup to the mission, the 1999 U of C engineering grad developed the procedures for installing new pieces of robotic hardware and trained the astronauts in these functions using virtual simulation labs.
After the launch, she was the resident expert in terms of assessing the health and performance of the robotic arm and acted an on-earth support for the three spacewalks, a Canadian record, embarked upon by fellow Canuck Dave Williams.
“Everything that’s done on the space station is very highly choreographed and very rehearsed,” said Lucia.
“I’d trained so closely with these astronauts, so it as really exciting to see the culmination of something we’d rehearsed over and over again.”
The tense buildup and arduous prep work weren’t devoid of humour, however.
“One of the things we did before the mission was write a Canadian version of the procedures, with lots of ‘eh’s’,” chuckled Lucia.
Discuss Add this link to... Bury
LinksMarker is a Web 2.0 content management system
Comments