99th Wilbur and Orville Wright Lecture

Flying in Space

Piers Sellers will talk about his most recent space flight, STS-132.  The space shuttle Atlantis was launched to the International Space Station (ISS) with a crew of six on 14th May 2010.  This was the third Shuttle flight for astronaut Piers Sellers who will describe how after docking with the ISS, the crew installed a new 8-tonne Russian module, carried out three spacewalks and completed some repair work to the ISS.

About the speaker:

Dr Piers Sellers, NASA Astronaut

Piers J Sellers was born on 11 April 1955 in Crowborough, Sussex, UK.  He received a Bachelor of Science degree in ecological science from the University of Edinburgh in 1976, and a Doctorate in biometeorology from Leeds University in 1981.

Before joining the astronaut corps, Piers has worked on research into how the Earth’s Biosphere and Atmosphere interact.  His work involved computer modelling of the climate system, satellite remote sensing studies and field work utilizing aircraft, satellites and ground teams in places such as Kansas, Russia, Africa, Canada and Brazil.

Selected as an astronaut candidate by NASA in April 1996, Piers reported to the NASA Johnson Space Center in August 1996.  He completed two years of training and evaluation and was initially assigned technical duties in the Astronaut Office Computer Support Branch, followed by service in the Astronaut Office Space Station Branch.  During that time, Piers worked part time in Moscow as a technical liaison on ISS computer software.  Since then, Piers has served as branch chief for the ISS Operations Branch of the Astronaut Office, among other duties.

Piers is a veteran of three space flights.  The first, STS-112 Atlantis (7-18 Oct 2002), was an International Space Station assembly mission accomplished in 170 orbits, travelling 4.5 million miles in 10 days, 19 hours, and 58 minutes.  The next, STS-121 (4-17 July 2006), was a return-to-flight test mission and assembly flight to the International Space Station accomplished in 12 days, 18 hours, 37 minutes and 54 seconds.  His most recent flight, STS-132 Atlantis (14-26 May 2010), was launched from the Kennedy Space Center, Florida, and docked with the International Space Station to deliver an Integrated Cargo Carrier and a Russian-build Mini Research Module.  This mission was completed in 186 orbits, travelling 4,879,978 miles in 11 days, 18 hours, 28 minutes and 2 seconds.

Piers has logged a total of 34 days, 23 hours, 03 minutes and 56 seconds in space, including almost 41 EVA hours in six spacewalks.

Free to attend: Please RSVP