Full colour glossy of NASA astronaut Timothy Kopra

NASA EXPERIENCE: Kopra was assigned to NASA at the Johnson Space Center in September 1998 as a vehicle integration test engineer. In this position, he primarily served as an engineering liaison for Space Shuttle launch operations and International Space Station (ISS) hardware testing. He was actively involved in the contractor tests of the Extravehicular Activity (EVA) interfaces for each of the space station truss segments.

Selected as an astronaut in July 2000, Kopra began his initial training the following month. Kopra then completed two years of intensive Space Shuttle, Space Station, and T-38 flight training. He then served in the Space Station Branch of the Astronaut Office, where his primary focus involved the testing of crew interfaces for two ISS pressurized modules as well as the implementation of support computers and operational Local Area Network on ISS. After completing a Russian language immersion course in Moscow, Russia, Kopra began training for a long duration space flight mission in July 2005. Since then, he has completed training at each of the international partner training sites and served as a backup crewmember to Expeditions 16 and 17. Kopra is assigned to Expedition 19. He will launch to the International Space Station with the crew of STS-127, targeted to launch in June 2009.

MAY 2009