- Karen L. Nyberg
Infobox Astronaut
name =Karen L. Nyberg
type =NASA Astronaut
status =Active
nationality =American
date_birth =birth date and age|1969|10|7
date_death =
place_birth =Parkers Prairie, Minnesota
place_death =
occupation =Mechanical Engineer
rank =
selection =2000 NASA Group
time =13d 18h 13m 7s
mission =STS-124
insignia =|Karen LuJean Nyberg (born
7 October 1969 ) is an Americanmechanical engineer andNASA astronaut . Nyberg is the 50th woman in space.Education
Born on
October 7 ,1969 inParkers Prairie ,Minnesota , Nyberg graduated "summa cum laude " with a degree inmechanical engineering from theUniversity of North Dakota in 1994. She continued her collegiate studies at theUniversity of Texas at Austin. There her graduate research was centered on human thermoregulation and experimental metabolic testing and control, focusing on the control of thermal neutrality in space suits. This work, performed at the Austin BioHeat Transfer Laboratory, led to her doctorate in 1998.Karen Nyberg was a very successful student in Elementry and as a seinor. cite web |title=Karen Nyberg |date=2007-03-26 |url=http://www.uncw.edu/aquarius/2006/07_2006/k_nyberg.htm |accessdate=2007-04-23] cite web |title=Astronaut Bio: Karen L. Nyberg |date=Apr 2007 |url=http://www.jsc.nasa.gov/Bios/htmlbios/nyberg-kl.html |accessdate=2007-04-23]NASA career
She worked at
Johnson Space Center from 1991 to 1995 and received a patent for work she completed in 1991 on Robot Friendly Probe and Socket Assembly. In 1998, on completing her doctorate, she accepted a position with the Crew and Thermal Systems Division, working as an Environmental Control Systems Engineer to improve space suit thermal control systems and evaluate firefighter suit cooling technologies. She also provided conceptual designs of the thermal control system for the Advanced Mars and Lunar Lander Mission studies, and environmental control system analysis for a collapsible hyperbaric chamber.She was selected as an Astronaut Candidate by NASA in July 2000 and after two years of training and evaluation, she qualified as a Mission Specialist and was assigned for technical duties in the Astronaut Office Station Operations Branch where she served as Crew Support Astronaut for the
Expedition 6 crew during their six-month mission aboard theInternational Space Station . In 2006, Nyberg took part inNEEMO 10, a deep-sea training and simulation exercise at the Aquarius underwater laboratory to help NASA prepare for the return of astronauts to the moon and eventual manned missions to Mars.cite web |title=NASA Space Simulation and Training Project: NEEMO 10 |date=2007-03-26 |url=http://www.uncw.edu/aquarius/2006/07_2006/expd.htm |accessdate=2007-04-23]Nyberg was assigned [ [http://www.nasa.gov/home/hqnews/2007/mar/HQ_07073_STS-124_crew_release.html NASA Assigns Crew for Shuttle Mission to Install Japanese Lab] "
NASA release" 07-73 Mar. 22, 2007 ] to the crew ofSTS-124 which flew to the International Space Station in May 2008. This was the second of three flights to launch components to complete the JapaneseKibō laboratory.Awards and honors
She has won a host of awards including the UND Young Alumni Achievement Award (2004), Space Act Award (1993); NASA JSC Patent Application Award (1993); NASA Tech Briefs Award (1993); NASA JSC Cooperative Education Special Achievement Award (1994); Joyce Medalen Society of Women Engineers Award (1993-94); D.J. Robertson Award of Academic Achievement (1992) and University of North Dakota School of Engineering & Mines Meritorious Service Award (1991-1992).
References
External links
* [http://www.jsc.nasa.gov/Bios/htmlbios/nyberg-kl.html NASA bio]
* [http://www.spacefacts.de/bios/astronauts/english/nyberg_karen.htm Spacefacts biography of Karen L. Nyberg]
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