Stephanie Diana Wilson (born September 27, 1966) is an American

engineer Engineers, as practitioners of engineering, are professionals who invent, design, analyze, build and test machines, complex systems, structures, gadgets and materials to fulfill functional objectives and requirements while considering the l ...

and a

NASA The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA ) is an independent agency of the US federal government responsible for the civil space program, aeronautics research, and space research. NASA was established in 1958, succeeding t ...

astronaut An astronaut (from the Ancient Greek (), meaning 'star', and (), meaning 'sailor') is a person trained, equipped, and deployed by a human spaceflight program to serve as a commander or crew member aboard a spacecraft. Although generally r ...

. She flew to space onboard three

Space Shuttle The Space Shuttle is a retired, partially reusable low Earth orbital spacecraft system operated from 1981 to 2011 by the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) as part of the Space Shuttle program. Its official program na ...

missions, and is the second

African American African Americans (also referred to as Black Americans and Afro-Americans) are an ethnic group consisting of Americans with partial or total ancestry from sub-Saharan Africa. The term "African American" generally denotes descendants of ens ...

woman to go into space, after

Mae Jemison Mae Carol Jemison (born October 17, 1956) is an American engineer, physician, and former NASA astronaut. She became the first black woman to travel into space when she served as a mission specialist aboard the Space Shuttle ''Endeavour''. Je ...

. her 42 days in space are the second most of any female African American astronaut, having been surpassed by

Jessica Watkins Jessica Andrea Watkins (born May 14, 1988) is an American NASA astronaut, geologist, aquanaut and former international rugby player. Watkins was announced as the first Black woman who will complete an International Space Station long-term missi ...

in 2022.

Early life and education

Stephanie Wilson was born in Boston, Massachusetts, on September 27, 1966. About a year later, her parents, Eugene and Barbara Wilson, decided to move to

Pittsfield, Massachusetts Pittsfield is the largest city and the county seat of Berkshire County, Massachusetts, United States. It is the principal city of the Pittsfield, Massachusetts Metropolitan Statistical Area which encompasses all of Berkshire County. Pittsfield� ...

. Eugene, a native of

Nesmith, South Carolina Nesmith is an unincorporated community in Williamsburg County, South Carolina, United States. It was a station on the Seaboard Air Line Railroad (now CSX Transportation) line which was built about 1912. Today it consists of a post office, fire st ...

, used his electronics training from his time in the Navy to get himself a degree from

Northeastern University Northeastern University (NU) is a private university, private research university with its main campus in Boston. Established in 1898, the university offers undergraduate and graduate programs on its main campus as well as satellite campuses in ...

and a long career in electrical engineering for

Raytheon Raytheon Technologies Corporation is an American multinational aerospace and defense conglomerate headquartered in Arlington, Virginia. It is one of the largest aerospace and defense manufacturers in the world by revenue and market capitaliza ...

Sprague Electric Sprague Electric Company was an electronic component maker founded by Robert C. Sprague in 1926. Sprague was best known for making a large line of capacitors used in a wide variety of electrical and electronic in commercial, industrial and milit ...

, and

Lockheed Martin The Lockheed Martin Corporation is an American aerospace, arms, defense, information security, and technology corporation with worldwide interests. It was formed by the merger of Lockheed Corporation with Martin Marietta in March 1995. It ...

, while Barbara, from

Talbot County, Georgia Talbot County is a county located in the west central portion of the U.S. state of Georgia. The 2020 census showed a population of 5,733. The county seat and largest city is Talbotton. History Talbot County was created from a portion of Musco ...

, worked as a production assistant for Lockheed Martin. After attending Stearns Elementary School, she attended Crosby Junior High School. For a career awareness class in middle school, Wilson was assigned to interview someone in a field that interested her. Since she liked to look up at the sky, she interviewed

Williams College Williams College is a Private college, private liberal arts colleges in the United States, liberal arts college in Williamstown, Massachusetts. It was established as a men's college in 1793 with funds from the estate of Ephraim Williams, a col ...

astronomer

Jay Pasachoff Jay Myron Pasachoff (July 1, 1943 – November 20, 2022) was an American astronomer. Pasachoff was Field Memorial Professor of Astronomy at Williams College and the author of textbooks and tradebooks in astronomy, physics, mathematics, and other ...

, clarifying her potential career interest in space. In high school, Eugene encouraged Stephanie to go into engineering, so she decided to become an aerospace engineer. Wilson graduated from Taconic High School, Pittsfield, Massachusetts, in 1984. She attended

Harvard University Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher le ...

, receiving a

Bachelor of Science A Bachelor of Science (BS, BSc, SB, or ScB; from the Latin ') is a bachelor's degree awarded for programs that generally last three to five years. The first university to admit a student to the degree of Bachelor of Science was the University of ...

degree in engineering science in 1988. Wilson earned a

Master of Science A Master of Science ( la, Magisterii Scientiae; abbreviated MS, M.S., MSc, M.Sc., SM, S.M., ScM or Sc.M.) is a master's degree in the field of science awarded by universities in many countries or a person holding such a degree. In contrast to ...

degree in aerospace engineering from the

University of Texas The University of Texas at Austin (UT Austin, UT, or Texas) is a public research university in Austin, Texas. It was founded in 1883 and is the oldest institution in the University of Texas System. With 40,916 undergraduate students, 11,075 ...

, in 1992. Wilson has returned to Harvard as a member of the

Harvard Board of Overseers The Harvard Board of Overseers (more formally The Honorable and Reverend the Board of Overseers) is one of Harvard University's two governing boards. Although its function is more consultative and less hands-on than the President and Fellows of Harv ...

. She was the Chief Marshal for the 362nd Harvard Commencement on May 30, 2013.

Career

Engineering

Wilson worked for two years for the former

Martin Marietta The Martin Marietta Corporation was an American company founded in 1961 through the merger of Glenn L. Martin Company and American-Marietta Corporation. In 1995, it merged with Lockheed Corporation to form Lockheed Martin. History Martin Mari ...

Astronautics Group in Denver, Colorado. As a Loads and Dynamics engineer for the

Titan IV Titan IV was a family of heavy-lift space launch vehicles developed by Martin Marietta and operated by the United States Air Force from 1989 to 2005. Launches were conducted from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Florida and Vandenberg Air For ...

rocket, Wilson was responsible for performing coupled loads analyses for the launch vehicle and payloads during flight events. Wilson left Martin Marietta in 1990 to attend graduate school at the University of Texas. Her research focused on the control and modeling of large, flexible space structures. Following the completion of her graduate work, Wilson began working for the

Jet Propulsion Laboratory The Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) is a federally funded research and development center and NASA field center in the City of La Cañada Flintridge, California, United States. Founded in the 1930s by Caltech researchers, JPL is owned by NASA an ...

Pasadena, California Pasadena ( ) is a city in Los Angeles County, California, northeast of downtown Los Angeles. It is the most populous city and the primary cultural center of the San Gabriel Valley. Old Pasadena is the city's original commercial district. I ...

, in 1992. As a member of the Attitude and Articulation Control Subsystem for the

Galileo spacecraft ''Galileo'' was an American robotic space probe that studied the planet Jupiter and its moons, as well as the asteroids Gaspra and Ida. Named after the Italian astronomer Galileo Galilei, it consisted of an orbiter and an entry probe. It was ...

, Wilson was responsible for assessing attitude controller performance, science platform pointing accuracy, antenna pointing accuracy, and spin rate accuracy. She worked in the areas of sequence development and testing as well. While at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Wilson also supported the Interferometery Technology Program as a member of the Integrated Modeling Team, which was responsible for finite element modeling, controller design, and software development.

NASA

Selected by

as an Astronaut Candidate in April 1996, Wilson reported to the

Johnson Space Center The Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center (JSC) is NASA's center for human spaceflight (originally named the Manned Spacecraft Center), where human spaceflight training, research, and flight control are conducted. It was renamed in honor of the late U ...

in August 1996. Having completed two years of training and evaluation, she is qualified for flight assignment as a mission specialist. She was initially assigned technical duties in the Astronaut Office Space Station Operations Branch to work with Space Station payload displays and procedures. She then served in the Astronaut Office

CAPCOM is a Japanese video game developer and video game publisher, publisher. It has created a number of List of best-selling video game franchises, multi-million-selling game franchises, with its most commercially successful being ''Resident Evil' ...

Branch, working in Mission Control as a prime communicator with on-orbit crews. Following her work in Mission Control, Wilson was assigned technical duties in the Astronaut Office Shuttle Operations Branch involving the Space Shuttle Main Engines, External Tank and Solid Rocket Boosters. Wilson has flown on three shuttle missions. On

STS-121 STS-121 was a 2006 NASA Space Shuttle mission to the International Space Station (ISS) flown by . The main purposes of the mission were to test new safety and repair techniques introduced following the ''Columbia'' disaster of February 2003 as w ...

, Wilson flew aboard as a mission specialist. She also flew on the

STS-120 STS-120 was a Space Shuttle mission to the International Space Station (ISS) that launched on 23 October 2007 from the Kennedy Space Center, Florida. The mission is also referred to as ISS-10A by the ISS program. STS-120 delivered the '' Harmony' ...

mission that delivered the Harmony connecting module to the International Space Station. In April 2010, Wilson flew as a Mission Specialist on

STS-131 STS-131 ( ISS assembly flight 19A) was a NASA Space Shuttle mission to the International Space Station (ISS). launched on 5 April 2010 at 6:21 am from LC-39A, and landed at 9:08 am on 20 April 2010 on runway 33 at the Kennedy Space C ...

. On October 18, 2019, Wilson was ground controller at

Houston Houston (; ) is the most populous city in Texas, the most populous city in the Southern United States, the fourth-most populous city in the United States, and the sixth-most populous city in North America, with a population of 2,304,580 in ...

for the first all woman spacewalk by

Christina Koch Christina Hammock Koch ( ; born January 29, 1979) is an American engineer and NASA astronaut of the class of 2013. She received Bachelor of Science degrees in electrical engineering and physics and a Master of Science in electrical engineering a ...

and

Jessica Meir Jessica Ulrika Meir (IPA: ; ; born ) is an American-Swedish NASA astronaut, marine biologist, and physiologist. She was previously an assistant professor of anesthesia at Harvard Medical School, Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, following ...

On December 9, 2020, NASA announced that Stephanie Wilson was among the candidates for the

Artemis program The Artemis program is a robotic and human Moon exploration program led by the United States' National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) along with three partner agencies: European Space Agency (ESA), Japan Aerospace Exploration ...

and if selected, she could be both the first woman and the first African-American on the Moon.

Spaceflight experience

STS-121

(July 4–17, 2006), was a return-to-flight test mission and assembly flight to the International Space Station. During the 13-day flight, the crew of Space Shuttle Discovery tested new equipment and procedures that increase the safety of space shuttles, repaired a rail car on the International Space Station and produced never-before-seen, high-resolution images of the Shuttle during and after its July 4 launch. Wilson supported robotic arm operations for vehicle inspection,

Multi-Purpose Logistics Module A Multi-Purpose Logistics Module (MPLM) is a large pressurized container that was used on Space Shuttle missions to transfer cargo to and from the International Space Station (ISS). Two MPLMs made a dozen trips in the Shuttle cargo bay and init ...

installation and EVAs and was responsible for the transfer of more than 28,000 pounds of supplies and equipment to the ISS. The crew also performed maintenance on the space station and delivered a new

Expedition 13 Expedition 13 was the 13th expedition to the International Space Station (ISS), and launched at 02:30 UTC on 30 March 2006. The expedition used the Soyuz TMA-8 spacecraft, which stayed at the station for the duration of the expedition for emerge ...

crew member to the station. The mission was accomplished in 306 hours, 37 minutes and 54 seconds.

STS-120

(October 23 – November 7, 2007) was a 6.25 million mile

mission to the

International Space Station The International Space Station (ISS) is the largest modular space station currently in low Earth orbit. It is a multinational collaborative project involving five participating space agencies: NASA (United States), Roscosmos (Russia), JAXA ...

(ISS). It delivered the ''

Harmony In music, harmony is the process by which individual sounds are joined together or composed into whole units or compositions. Often, the term harmony refers to simultaneously occurring frequencies, pitches ( tones, notes), or chords. However ...

'' module, and reconfigured the P6 truss in preparation for future assembly missions. STS-120 carried a new

Expedition 16 Expedition 16 was the 16th expedition to the International Space Station (ISS). The first two crew members, Yuri Malenchenko and Peggy Whitson, launched on 10 October 2007, aboard Soyuz TMA-11, and were joined by spaceflight participant Sheikh ...

crew member,

Daniel Tani Daniel M. Tani (born February 1, 1961) is an American engineer and retired NASA astronaut. He was born in Ridley Park, Pennsylvania, but considers Lombard, Illinois, to be his hometown. With Peggy Whitson, Tani conducted the 100th spacewalk on t ...

, and returned

Expedition 15 Expedition 15 was the 15th expedition to the International Space Station (ISS). Four crew members participated in the expedition, although for most of the expedition's duration only three were on the station at any one time. During Expedition 15, ...

and Expedition 16 crewmember

Clayton Anderson Clayton Conrad Anderson (born February 23, 1959) is a retired NASA astronaut. Launched on STS-117, he replaced Sunita Williams on June 10, 2007 as a member of the ISS Expedition 15 crew. He is currently an author, a motivational speaker, and a P ...

. The crew conducted four

spacewalks Extravehicular activity (EVA) is any activity done by an astronaut in outer space outside a spacecraft. In the absence of a breathable atmosphere of Earth, Earthlike atmosphere, the astronaut is completely reliant on a space suit for environmen ...

and performed a previously untested repair method on the station's solar array. The mission was accomplished in 15 days, 2 hours, 23 minutes, during 238 orbits.

STS-131

(April 5–20, 2010) was a resupply mission to the International Space Station. Space Shuttle Discovery was launched pre-dawn from Kennedy Space Center. Once docked to the space station, the crew delivered more than 27,000 pounds of hardware, supplies, experiments and equipment, including a tank full of ammonia coolant that required three spacewalks and robotics to install, new crew sleeping quarters, a window observation facility and a freezer for experiments. During the mission, Wilson was responsible for robotics for spacewalking support using the space station robotic arm and for robotic removal of the "Leonardo" Multi-Purpose Logistics Module from the payload bay of Discovery. For the return to Earth, Wilson robotically installed Leonardo, which was packed with more than 6,000 pounds of hardware, science results and used supplies, inside Discovery's payload bay. The STS-131 mission was accomplished in 15 days, 2 hours, 47 minutes and 10 seconds and traveled 6,232,235 statute miles in 238 orbits.

Artemis

Artemis In ancient Greek mythology and religion, Artemis (; grc-gre, Ἄρτεμις) is the goddess of the hunt, the wilderness, wild animals, nature, vegetation, childbirth, care of children, and chastity. She was heavily identified wit ...

(2017–Present) is the mission NASA announced in 2020 to return to the moon, scheduled for 2024. Wilson has been selected as one of eighteen astronauts comprising the Artemis team. This mission will send the first woman and next man to walk on the lunar surface.

Personal life

Wilson is a Christian. Her hobbies include skiing and stamp collecting. She is married to Julius McCurdy.

Awards and honors

NASA Distinguished Service Medal The NASA Distinguished Service Medal is the highest award that can be bestowed by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration of the United States. The medal may be presented to any member of the federal government, including both milita ...

(2009, 2011) *

NASA Space Flight Medal The NASA Space Flight Medal is a decoration of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. According to its statutes, it is awarded "for significant achievement or service during individual participation as a civilian or military astronau ...

(2006, 2007, 2010) * Honorary Doctorate of Science from Williams College (2011) * Harvard College Women's Professional Achievement Award (2008) * Harvard Foundation Scientist of the Year Award (2008) * Young Outstanding Texas Exes Award (2005) * Johnson Space Center Innovation Group Achievement Award (2013) * Johnson Space Center Director Commendation Award (2013) * Salem Trailblazer Award (2019)

Spaceflight gallery

File:Iss013e49432.jpg, Wilson in the US lab during

File:Stephanie Wilson and Naoko Yamazaki in the Cupola.jpg, Stephanie Wilson in the ''Cupola'' during STS-131, with JAXA astronaut

Naoko Yamazaki is a Japanese engineer and former astronaut at JAXA. She was the second Japanese woman to fly in space. The first was Chiaki Mukai. Early life Yamazaki was born Naoko Sumino in Matsudo City. She spent two years of her childhood in Sapporo. Af ...

File:Stephanie Wilson STS-131 mission specialist in US lab.jpg, Wilson in the US lab, sorting out technical blueprints File:Wilson in Cupola looking up.jpg, Observing the condition of the protective shutters in the ''

Cupola In architecture, a cupola () is a relatively small, most often dome-like, tall structure on top of a building. Often used to provide a lookout or to admit light and air, it usually crowns a larger roof or dome. The word derives, via Italian, from ...

'' during

File:ISS cupola with Stephanie Wilson.jpg, Stephanie relaxing to music in the ''Cupola'' during STS-131 File:STS-131 group pose with Stephanie Wilson in Cupola.jpg, Group photo with Naoko Yamazaki and

Dorothy Metcalf-Lindenburger Dorothy Marie "Dottie" Metcalf-Lindenburger (born May 2, 1975, in Colorado Springs, Colorado) is a retired American astronaut. In 2000, she married Jason Metcalf-Lindenburger, a fellow Whitman College graduate and educator, from Pendleton, Orego ...

File:255-STS-s131e008502.jpg, Wilson in

Node 1 upright=1.0, The ''Unity'' module as seen in May 2011 The ''Unity'' connecting module, also known as Node 1, is the first U.S.-built component of the International Space Station (ISS). It connects the Russian and United States segments of th ...

File:Stephanie Wilson inside the Japanese Experiment Module.jpg, Inside '' Kibō'', the

Japanese Experiment Module Japanese may refer to: * Something from or related to Japan, an island country in East Asia * Japanese language, spoken mainly in Japan * Japanese people, the ethnic group that identifies with Japan through ancestry or culture ** Japanese diaspor ...

File:STS-131 Metcalf-Lindenburger, Poindexter, Wilson, Yamazaki at Kibo.jpg,

crew playing around during their time off work File:STS-131 TCDT10.jpg, Atop the launch pad tower for STS-131 File:STS-131 Flight Day 6 highlights.ogv, Mission highlights

References

External links

NASA biography
June 2019 {{DEFAULTSORT:Wilson, Stephanie 1966 births Living people People from Boston American astronauts Women astronauts Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences alumni University of Texas at Austin College of Education alumni African-American women engineers American women engineers African-American engineers African-American Methodists People of the African Methodist Episcopal church African-American women aviators American women aviators African-American aviators Aviators from Massachusetts Space Shuttle program astronauts