Astronaut on shuttle flight studied at the University of Hawaii at Manoa

University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa
Contact:
Tara Hicks Johnson, (808) 956-3151
School of Ocean and Earth Sciences and Technology
Posted: Dec 4, 2007


HONOLULU - Stanley Love, a Mission Specialist on the STS-122 scheduled to launch December 6th, 2007, spent time studying at the University of Hawaii at Manoa. Stanley came to the University of Hawaii in 1994 for a postdoctoral research appointment within the Hawaii Institute for Geophysics and Planetology (HIGP) modeling the formation of meteoritic chondrules and the collisional evolution of asteroids, and investigating the possibility of meteorites from the planet Mercury.

Space shuttle Atlantis' mission on STS-122 is what everyone's been working toward: expanding the science capabilities of the International Space Station. The flight, coined "The Voyage of Columbus" will deliver the newest research module to the orbiting complex, the European Space Agency‘s Columbus laboratory. The addition of Columbus will expand the science capabilities of the space station.

Love is "Mission Specialist 4" on this trip to the International Space Station. In his biography on the NASA website he gives a little more detail on the goal of the mission, and his role in it. "The goal of the mission is to install the European Space Agency‘s Columbus laboratory module on the space station," explains Love. "In a nutshell, we‘ll launch out of Florida at the moment the space station‘s orbit passes over Florida, we‘ll spend about two days catching up with the International Space Station, we‘ll dock, and then the day after docking we‘ll reach into the shuttle‘s payload bay with the station‘s robot arm, pull out Columbus, and stick it on the side of Node 2. We‘ll spend a few more days docked to the space station running three spacewalks, we‘ll transfer supplies back and forth, we‘re going to drop off a crew member and then pick up a crew member who had been staying on station for a few months. We‘ll undock from station, spend a couple of days in free flight, and then return to Florida for a landing." His duties will include being in charge of the shuttle robot arm, he‘s second in charge of the space station robot arm, and he‘ll be the third of three spacewalkers during the mission.

While at the University of Hawaii at Manoa, Love worked for Dr. Klaus Keil, a Professor in HIGP, and the former Interim Dean of the School of Ocean and Earth Science and Technology. "Dr. Stan Love is a superb scientist and did some pioneering work on meteorites while at UH, and I am sure he will be an equally successful astronaut," says Klaus. "The greatest compliment I can pay Stan is that he would have had an outstanding career as a University researcher and teacher, had he not decided to join the astronaut corps."

For Interviews contact: Klaus Keil, Professor, HIGP, School of Ocean and Earth Science and Technology, University of Hawaii, Email: keli@hawaii.edu, Phone: (808) 348-0717

NASA Preflight interview: http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/shuttle/shuttlemissions/sts122/interview_love.html

For more information, visit: http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/shuttle/shuttlemissions/sts122/interview_love.html