Stephanie Diana Wilson (born September 27, 1966)Laura Woodmansee, ed. ''Women Astronauts.'' (2002). Burlington, Ont.: Apogee Books. . p. 131. is an American

engineer Engineers, as practitioners of engineering, are professionals who Invention, invent, design, build, maintain and test machines, complex systems, structures, gadgets and materials. They aim to fulfill functional objectives and requirements while ...

and a

NASA The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA ) is an independent agencies of the United States government, independent agency of the federal government of the United States, US federal government responsible for the United States ...

astronaut An astronaut (from the Ancient Greek (), meaning 'star', and (), meaning 'sailor') is a person trained, equipped, and deployed by a List of human spaceflight programs, human spaceflight program to serve as a commander or crew member of a spa ...

. She flew to space onboard three

Space Shuttle The Space Shuttle is a retired, partially reusable launch system, 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. ...

missions and is the second

African American African Americans, also known as Black Americans and formerly also called Afro-Americans, are an Race and ethnicity in the United States, American racial and ethnic group that consists of Americans who have total or partial ancestry from an ...

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 African-American woman to travel into space when she served as a mission specialist aboard the Space Shuttle Endeavou ...

. her 43 days in space are the second most of any female African American astronaut, having been surpassed by Jessica Watkins in 2022.

Early life and education

Stephanie Wilson was born in

Boston, Massachusetts Boston is the capital and most populous city in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Massachusetts in the United States. The city serves as the cultural and Financial centre, financial center of New England, a region of the Northeas ...

on September 27, 1966. About a year later, her parents, Eugene and Barbara Wilson, decided to move to

Pittsfield, Massachusetts Pittsfield is the most populous 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. Pittsfi ...

. Eugene, a native of Nesmith, South Carolina, used his electronics training from his time in the Navy to get himself a degree from

Northeastern University Northeastern University (NU or NEU) is a private university, private research university with its main campus in Boston, Massachusetts, United States. It was founded by the Boston Young Men's Christian Association in 1898 as an all-male instit ...

and a long career in electrical engineering for

Raytheon Raytheon is a business unit of RTX Corporation and is a major U.S. defense contractor and industrial corporation with manufacturing concentrations in weapons and military and commercial electronics. Founded in 1922, it merged in 2020 with Unite ...

, Sprague Electric, and

Lockheed Martin The Lockheed Martin Corporation is an American Arms industry, defense and aerospace manufacturer with worldwide interests. It was formed by the merger of Lockheed Corporation with Martin Marietta on March 15, 1995. It is headquartered in North ...

, while Barbara, from Talbot County, Georgia, 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, United States. It was established as a men's college in 1793 with funds from the estate of Ephraim ...

astronomer Jay Pasachoff, 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 university, private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Founded in 1636 and named for its first benefactor, the History of the Puritans in North America, Puritan clergyma ...

, receiving a

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

degree in engineering science in 1988. Wilson earned a

Master of Science A Master of Science (; abbreviated MS, M.S., MSc, M.Sc., SM, S.M., ScM or Sc.M.) is a master's degree. In contrast to the Master of Arts degree, the Master of Science degree is typically granted for studies in sciences, engineering and medici ...

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, United States. Founded in 1883, it is the flagship institution of the University of Texas System. With 53,082 students as of fall 2 ...

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 an advisory board of alumni at Harvard University. Unlike the Harvard Corporation, the Board of Overseers is not a fiduciary governing board, but in ...

. 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 Marie ...

Astronautics Group in Denver, Colorado. As a Loads and Dynamics engineer for the Titan IV 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 centers, federally funded research and development center (FFRDC) in La Cañada Flintridge, California, Crescenta Valley, United States. Founded in 1936 by Cali ...

Pasadena, California Pasadena ( ) is a city in Los Angeles County, California, United States, 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 commerci ...

, in 1992. As a member of the Attitude and Articulation Control Subsystem for the Galileo spacecraft, 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 in Houston, Texas (originally named the Manned Spacecraft Center), where human spaceflight training, research, and flight controller, flight control are conducted. ...

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 company. It has created a number of critically acclaimed and List of best-selling video game franchises, multi-million-selling game franchises, with its most commercially successful being ''Resident Evil'', ''Monster ...

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, 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 October 23, 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. On October 18, 2019, Wilson was ground controller at

Houston Houston ( ) is the List of cities in Texas by population, most populous city in the U.S. state of Texas and in the Southern United States. Located in Southeast Texas near Galveston Bay and the Gulf of Mexico, it is the county seat, seat of ...

for the first all woman spacewalk by Christina Koch and Jessica Meir. On December 9, 2020, NASA announced that Stephanie Wilson was among the candidates for the

Artemis program The Artemis program is a Exploration of the Moon, Moon exploration program led by the United States' National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), formally established in 2017 via Space Policy Directive 1. The program's stated long-ter ...

, and if selected, she could be both the first woman and the first African-American on the Moon. On January 31, 2024, NASA announced that Wilson would fly as mission specialist on the SpaceX Crew-9 mission to the

International Space Station The International Space Station (ISS) is a large space station that was Assembly of the International Space Station, assembled and is maintained in low Earth orbit by a collaboration of five space agencies and their contractors: NASA (United ...

. However, when NASA decided to return the

Boeing Starliner The Boeing Starliner (or CST-100) is a spacecraft designed to transport crew to and from the International Space Station (ISS) and other low-Earth-orbit destinations. Developed by Boeing under NASA's Commercial Crew Program (CCP), it consists o ...

capsule on the Boeing Crew Flight Test uncrewed, Wilson was removed from Crew-9, along with commander and fellow astronaut Zena Cardman, to make room on the return journey for the Starliner astronauts, Barry E. Wilmore and Sunita Williams. On September 28, 2024, she made a brief appearance during NASA's coverage of the Crew-9 launch, which was co-hosted by Cardman and NASA communicator Derrol Nail. Cardman had commented during the nearly five-hour broadcast at length on the experience that Nick Hague and

Roscosmos The State Corporation for Space Activities "Roscosmos", commonly known simply as Roscosmos (), is a State corporation (Russia), state corporation of the Russian Federation responsible for space science, space flights, List of space agencies, c ...

cosmonaut Aleksandr Gorbunov were going through as they successfully launched from

Cape Canaveral Space Force Station Cape Canaveral Space Force Station (CCSFS) is an installation of the United States Space Force's Space Launch Delta 45, located on Cape Canaveral in Brevard County, Florida. Headquartered at the nearby Patrick Space Force Base, the sta ...

in Florida.

Spaceflight experience

STS-121

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 initi ...

installation and EVAs and was responsible for transferring 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 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. It delivered the ''

Harmony In music, harmony is the concept of combining different sounds in order to create new, distinct musical ideas. Theories of harmony seek to describe or explain the effects created by distinct pitches or tones coinciding with one another; harm ...

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

Expedition 16 Expedition 16 was the 16th List of International Space Station Expeditions, 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, an ...

crew member, Daniel Tani, and returned Expedition 15 and Expedition 16 crewmember Clayton Anderson. The crew conducted four spacewalks 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

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 religion and Greek mythology, mythology, Artemis (; ) is the goddess of the hunting, hunt, the wilderness, wild animals, transitions, nature, vegetation, childbirth, Kourotrophos, care of children, and chastity. In later tim ...

(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.

Personal life

Wilson is a Christian. She is a member of Alpha Kappa Alpha sorority. Her hobbies include skiing and stamp collecting. She married Julius "BJ" McCurdy, a television producer, in June 1999. The couple divorced in 2003.

Awards and honors

* NASA Distinguished Service Medal (2009, 2011) * NASA Space Flight Medal (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 STS-121 File:Stephanie Wilson and Naoko Yamazaki in the Cupola.jpg, Stephanie Wilson in the ''Cupola'' during STS-131, with JAXA astronaut Naoko Yamazaki 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, usually dome-like structure on top of a building often crowning a larger roof or dome. Cupolas often serve as a roof lantern to admit light and air or as a lookout. The word derives, via Ital ...

'' during STS-131 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 File:255-STS-s131e008502.jpg, Wilson in Node 1 File:Stephanie Wilson inside the Japanese Experiment Module.jpg, Inside '' Kibō'', the Japanese Experiment Module File:STS-131 Metcalf-Lindenburger, Poindexter, Wilson, Yamazaki at Kibo.jpg, STS-131 crew playing around during their time 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 American women astronauts Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences alumni University of Texas at Austin College of Education alumni African-American women engineers 21st-century American women engineers 21st-century American 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 Martin Marietta people Space Shuttle program astronauts