Rice alum installs Japan’s new lab on space station

Rice alum installs Japan’s new lab on space station
Astronauts Doi, Whitson are first Rice alums to orbit at same time

BY JADE BOYD
Rice News Staff

Space shuttle Endeavour crew member and Rice alumnus Takao Doi ’04 used the shuttle’s remote manipulator arm to install the first section of Japan’s new laboratory on the international space station (ISS) last night.

Doi and ISS commander Peggy Whitson ’86 made Rice history this week when they became the first two Rice alumni to fly in space at the same time.

Endeavour docked with the ISS Thursday, beginning a two-week mission that includes installation of the Japanese lab, which is called Kibo, as well as a new multilimbed robot arm named Dextre. Endeavour’s mission, STS-123, comes at a critical period of station growth. NASA is racing to finish building the ISS before the space shuttle fleet is retired in 2010. Whitson, who took command of the ISS in October, oversaw the installation of the European Space Agency’s (ESA) Columbus laboratory just last month.

TAKAO DOI	PEGGY WHITSON

“Peggy is deeply thoughtful, energetic beyond reason and committed to the unique science that can be done on the ISS,” said Kathleen Matthews, dean of the Wiess School of Natural Sciences and Whitson’s thesis adviser at Rice. “That she is commander with a fellow Rice Ph.D. alum onboard marks a milestone in Rice’s long-term scientific connection with the space program and our efforts to explore the universe.”

This is the second mission in space for Doi, of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, who earned a doctorate in astronomy from Rice in 2004. Doi became Japan’s first man in space in 1997 when he made two spacewalks and logged more than 370 hours aboard space shuttle Columbia.

Doi’s thesis adviser, Pat Hartigan, professor of physics and astronomy, said Doi’s research at Rice led “to a more complete picture of how star formation really works.” As part of the study, Doi thoroughly mapped the Orion Nebula with an instrument that allowed him to study young stars that are still forming, Hartigan said.

NASA

From left, Takao Doi, mission specialist, and Dominic Gorie, mission commander, work from the flight deck of space shuttle Endeavour.

“Takao offered to take something from Rice up with him on this flight, and at (Rice Provost) Gene Levy’s suggestion I printed out a nice cloth image of the Orion Nebula,” Hartigan said. “When he brings it back, we will frame it and display it in our department.”

Doi, assisted by two spacewalking comrades, installed the first section of the Kibo lab on the ISS early Friday morning. Kibo, which means “hope” in Japanese, will be built in three phases, and once finished, it will be the largest experiment module on the space station.

“This is the first piece of the Japanese space station module and … the first manned space facility Japan has ever launched,” Doi said in a prelaunch interview. “So I can say that with this mission (the) real Japanese manned space program can begin.”

The logistics module installed last night contains eight of the 31 racks that will eventually make up the lab. When completed early next year, Kibo will possess every function required to perform experiments in space. It will have sections that are both pressurized and exposed to space, and it will be equipped with a scientific airlock and a remote manipulator system that will allow astronauts to operate exposed experiments without spacewalks.

Whitson commands the 16th expedition to the space station. In addition to overseeing the construction and day-to-day operation of the station, Whitson and two ISS crewmates are working with ESA ground controllers in Germany to oversee the first round of experiments in the new Columbus laboratory.

Whitson, who earned both her master’s and doctorate in biochemistry from Rice, is the first woman to command the space station. She also served as the station’s first science officer during Expedition 5 in 2002. She’s scheduled to return to Earth in May aboard the space shuttle Discovery, which will deliver the second piece of the Kibo lab to the station along with ISS Expedition 17.