When Space Shuttle Endeavour launches this week – it is scheduled for Nov. 14 at 7:55 p.m. but subject to change – it will not only be among the final Space Shuttle missions, it will also feature a West Point graduate aboard the massive vehicle.
Lt. Col. Shane Kimbrough, a former Army baseball player and member of the Class of 1989, will be heavily involved in the 15-day mission.
“I feel fortunate to represent the Army, West Point and my high school,” said Kimbrough. “It is a long shot to be an astronaut and pretty unbelievable that it’s happening.”
Endeavour is scheduled to fly to the International Space Station with four space walks planned, two of which will involve Kimbrough. The walks are expected to last six-and-a-half hours.
Navy Capt. Christopher Ferguson will command the STS-126 mission with Air Force Lt. Col. Eric Boe serving as the pilot. Kimbrough is one of five mission specialists, along with Navy Capt. Stephen Bowen, Navy Capt. Heidemarie Stefanyshyn-Piper and NASA astronauts Donald R. Pettit and Sandra H. Magnus.
The shuttle will carry a reusable logistics module containing supplies and equipment, including crew quarters, exercise equipment, spare hardware and components of the regenerative life support system.
Magnus will remain on the station, replacing Expedition 17/18 Flight Engineer George Chamitoff who will return with the crew after his six-month stay. Magnus is scheduled to serve as a flight engineer and NASA science officer for Expedition 18 and will return aboard shuttle mission STS-119.
As a member of the 27th shuttle mission to the International Space Station, Kimbrough is seeing his hard work and dedication rewarded with a trip of a lifetime.
Every minute of the journey is scri pted, including sleep and free time.
“I’m getting really excited now that the mission is quickly approaching,” said Kimbrough from Johnson Space Station in Houston, Texas, in October. “My military training has kicked in. We are training for a certain mission and we are comfortable with the hundreds of people working on our vehicle.”
The process from West Point to NASA Astronaut wasn’t an easy or quick one. Kimbrough graduated from the Academy after earning three letters in baseball. He posted five saves during his senior year, the sixth highest single-season total and concluded his career with six. He was team captain as a senior and earned All-Patriot League accolades.
He entered Aviation School and was assigned to Fort Stewart, Ga. He served in Operation Desert Storm in Southwest Asia as an attack helicopter platoon leader, aviation liaison officer and attack helicopter battalion operations office. In 1994, he was assigned to Fort Bragg, N.C., as a commander of an Apache helicopter company. He later commanded an Aviation Regimental Headquarters company at Fort Bragg.
Kimbrough earned his masters’ degree at the Georgia Institute of Technology in 1998 before returning to West Point in the Department of Mathematical Sciences.
“My interests in NASA started when I was a kid because my grandparents lived across from Cape Canaveral and we spent a lot of time there in the summer,” said Kimbrough. “My grandfather would take me to see anything launch. When I went to West Point, I thought the dream was gone. I didn’t think you could be an Army astronaut. I met an Army superior who saw it my way, though.
“I applied four times before I was selected,” he continued. “The third time I applied, I was teaching at West Point. I was selected to the highly qualified list and asked to come to Johnson Space Center to work as an Army officer. That was a good sign. I worked there for four years before being selected in 2004.”
Once selected as an Astronaut, Kimbrough spent two years in candidate training school where he received a broad overview of the shuttle, the space station, began working in simulators and learned how to fly jets. He graduated as an astronaut and began generic training with others not assigned to missions. In addition he worked technical jobs while training.
Prior to his mission training, Kimbrough worked in capsule communications, talking to various crews while in space. If you’ve seen Apollo 13, you have a broad idea of how space missions work and the “cap-com” is generally seated next to the Flight Director, who was played by Ed Harris in the 1995 film.
The crew for Endeavour was assigned last September when the training focus became this specific mission.
Eight days before the launch, the crew will be quarantined as final preparations begin, traveling to Florida and spend the final four days at Cape Canaveral before launch.
Once the space shuttle launches, Kimbrough and the crew will have several tasks to compete at the Space Station. A survey of the entire shuttle is scheduled as well as an inspection by a robotic arm with high fidelity sensors that search for cracks or other issues that would compromise the return trip.
“West Point taught me to be very organized and excellent time management skills,” said Kimbrough. “Those organizational and time management skills have been utilized in every step of my career and will certainly be an asset during this mission.”
One of the tasks on the space station will be to repair some exterior issues. A robotic arm will be utilized to assist. Modules will be taken off the space station and loaded onto the shuttle with several racks of experiments to come on and off the station.
Kimbrough will be on the end of a robotic arm for parts of the exterior tests and inspection and will do a space walk to solve some problems with the Solar Alpha Rotary Joint. He will also participate in a space walk to help install new exterior cameras.
The flight to the space station will take approximately two-and-a-half days. It takes eight-and-a-half minutes to reach space with the shuttle flying at 17,500 miles per hour. The return trip is a little quicker and the weather will help determine where it lands on the return. Kennedy Space Station is the No. 1 choice.
While the days in space are structured, there is some free time. Kimbrough will take a letterman’s A that he received from Athletics Director Kevin Anderson and is hopeful he will have an opportunity to take a photo. The astronauts will have access to e-mail and are also scheduled to do a teleconference from space with family.
It is sure to be an emotional time for Kimbrough and the crew as childhood dreams become reality and a piece of West Point reaches out to space.
