Steven Smith (astronaut)

Infobox Astronaut
name =Steven Smith

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type =NASA Astronaut
nationality =American
status =Inactive, on special assignment
date_birth =December 30, 1958
place_birth =Phoenix, Arizona
occupation =Administrator
selection =1992 NASA Group
time =40d 00h 16m
mission =STS-68, STS-82, STS-103, STS-110
insignia =|

Steven Lee Smith (born December 30, 1958), is an America technology executive and NASA astronaut.

Education

Graduated from Leland High School, San Jose, California, in 1977; received a bachelor of science degree in electrical engineering in 1981; a master of science degree in electrical engineering in 1982; and a master’s degree in business administration in 1987. All three degrees are from Stanford University.

Awards and honors

NASA Outstanding Leadership Medal, NASA Space Flight Medal, NASA Exceptional Service Medal, IBM Outstanding Technical Achievement Award, IBM Outstanding Community Service Award. Seven-time high school and collegiate All-American in swimming and water polo. Two-time National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Champion at Stanford in water polo. Captain of the 1980 NCAA Championship team. Former Board Member of Special Olympics Texas.

Experience

Steve Smith worked for IBM in the Large Scale Integration (semiconductor) Technology Group in San Jose as a technical group lead from 1982 until 1985. Following a leave to pursue graduate studies, Smith returned to IBM’s Hardware and Systems Management Group as a product manager until 1989.

NASA career

Steve Smith is a veteran of four space flights covering 16 million miles and seven space walks totaling 49 hours and 25 minutes. Smith’s spacewalk time places him in the top five on the all-time American and World spacewalk duration lists. He joined NASA in 1989 in the Mission Operations Directorate. As a payload officer, his duties included preflight payload integration and real-time flight controller support in Mission Control. He was selected as an astronaut candidate by NASA in 1992 and then completed one year of astronaut candidate training.

In September 1993, Smith became the first member of the 1992 astronaut class to receive a flight assignment. He has served as the Astronaut Office representative for the Space Shuttle main engines, the solid rocket boosters, the external tank, and Shuttle safety. Smith was also assigned to duties at the Kennedy Space Center for a year and a half as a member of the astronaut support team. The team was responsible for Space Shuttle prelaunch vehicle checkout, crew ingress and strap-in prior to launch, and crew egress post landing. After STS-103, he served as the Deputy Chief Astronaut for a year.

Smith served as a mission specialist aboard the Space Shuttle Endeavour on Mission STS-68 in September 1994. Smith’s responsibilities were split between Shuttle systems and Space Radar Lab 2 (SRL-2, the flight’s primary payload). Smith was one of two crewmen trained to perform a space walk had one been required. Endeavour circled Earth 183 times and traveled 4.7 million miles during the 11-day flight.

Smith performed three space walks as a member of the February 1997 STS-82 Discovery crew which serviced the Hubble Space Telescope (HST). The crew completed five space walks in order to improve the scientific capability of the telescope and to replace degraded equipment. The flight orbited the Earth 150 times covering 4.1 million miles during the 10-day flight.

Smith returned to the Hubble Space Telescope and performed two spacewalks as the Payload Commander for STS-103 in December 1999. The crew performed three space walks to return Hubble to science operations with several upgraded subsystems. STS-103 orbited the Earth 120 times covering 3.2 million miles in just under 8 days.

As the lead spacewalker of the April 2002 STS-110 Atlantis crew which installed the SO (S-Zero) Truss on the International Space Station, Smith performed two of the flight’s four space walks. The crew spent a week in joint operations with the station’s Expedition-4 crew. The STS-110 mission covered 4.5 million miles during 171 orbits in just under 11 days.

Steve Smith is currently on a detached assignment serving as the NASA Automated Transfer Vehicle (ATV) Launch Package Manager for the ISS Program.

External links

* [http://www.jsc.nasa.gov/Bios/htmlbios/smith-s.html Steven Smith's biography at NASA]
* [http://www.spacefacts.de/english/bio_ast.htm Spacefacts Biography]