Alumna
Tracy Caldwell Headed to Space Station
March
31, 2010
Tracy
Caldwell
University of California, Davis, alumna and astronaut Tracy Caldwell
Dyson is scheduled to lift off Friday, April 2, from Baikanour Cosmodrome,
Kazakhstan, for a six-month stay on the International Space Station. Caldwell
Dyson will be flying on a Russian Soyuz rocket with two Russian cosmonauts
and arriving at the space station on April 4.
During her mission, Caldwell Dyson will serve as flight
engineer, making her first spacewalk and carrying out a variety of science
experiments. She is expected to return to Earth in September.
Caldwell Dyson earned her Ph.D. in chemistry from UC Davis in 1997.
She also has a bachelor's degree in chemistry from California State University,
Fullerton. As a student at UC Davis, Caldwell Dyson learned to fly and
to speak Russian. This is her second space flight: Caldwell Dyson spent
almost two weeks on the space station in August 2007.
Don Land, professor of chemistry at UC Davis, supervised Caldwell
Dyson's doctoral work and is available to comment on the mission and her
time at UC Davis.
Requests for interviews with Caldwell Dyson while she is in orbit
should be directed to the Rob Navias in the Public Affairs Office at the
NASA Johnson Space Center.
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