SpaceRef has published a NASA news release that announces astronaut Janice Voss has died at age 55 after a battle with breast cancer. She flew on five space shuttle flights from 1993 to 2000.
Janice Voss' Biography
NASA's official biography for Voss indicates she earned a bachelor's degree in engineering at Purdue University in 1975. Then she attended the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, obtaining a master's degree in electrical engineering in 1977 and a doctorate in aeronautics/astronautics in 1987. She also took some correspondence courses from the University of Oklahoma and some graduate work at Rice University in Houston.
Her pre-astronaut work experience includes time as a co-op at NASA's Johnson Space Flight Center tom 1973 to 1975, 1977 as a crew trainer and a position at Orbital Sciences Corporation from 1987 to 1990. She was selected as an astronaut candidate in 1990 and as an astronaut in 1991.
Space Shuttle Flights
STS-57 Endeavour: June 21 to July 1, 1993. Voss was a mission specialist on a SpaceHab mission. SpaceHab was a laboratory take in the shuttle's payload bay in which numerous experiments were performed.
STS-63 Discovery: Feb 3-11, 1995. Voss was a mission specialist in another SpaceHab mission that also featured a female pilot astronaut, Eileen Collins, and a Russian cosmonaut, Vladimir Titov. Discovery also performed the first approach and fly around of the Russian space station Mir.
STS-83 Columbia: April 4-8, 1997. Voss was the payload commander for the flight of the Microgravity Science Lab-1. Unfortunately problems with one of three fuel cells cut short the mission, though some science was accomplished.
STS-94 Columbia: July 1-17, 1997. Voss was again the payload commander for the re-flight of the Microgravity Science Lab-1. Not only the same payload but the same crew as STS-83 was flown, this time to a successful conclusion.
STS-99 Endeavour: Feb 11-22, 2000. Voss was a mission specialist on the Radar Topographical Mission, which covered 99.88 percent of the Earth's surface between 50 degrees north latitude and 58 degrees south latitude. Enough data was returned to fill 20,000 CDs, mapping 47 million square miles.
Post-Shuttle Career
From October 2004 to November 2007, Voss worked as science director for the Kepler Space Telescope. The Kepler was launched in March 2009, and has discovered numerous extra solar planets. Voss was also Payloads Lead at the Astronaut Office Station Branch.
Mark R. Whittington is the author of Children of Apollo and The Last Moonwalker. He has written on space subjects for a variety of periodicals, including The Houston Chronicle, The Washington Post, USA Today, the L.A. Times, and The Weekly Standard.
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