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Astronaut Jeanette Epps Bumped From Space Station Flight

Accepted submission by Fnord666 at 2018-01-19 22:02:50
Career & Education

NASA said Thursday that rookie astronaut Serena Auñón-Chancellor will replace Jeanette Epps on an expedition set for launch to the International Space Station in June.

The space agency did not disclose a reason for the crew change, and a NASA spokesperson offered no details on the decision.

"A number of factors are considered when making flight assignments," the spokesperson said. "These decisions are personnel matters for which NASA doesn't provide information."

The space agency announced Epps' assignment to the Expedition 56 and 57 crews in January 2017. The Syracuse, New York, native would have become the first African American astronaut to live and work aboard the station on a long-duration mission, and the fourth African American woman to fly in space.

[...] Epps was a member of the backup crew for the most recent launch of residents to the space station in December. She traveled to the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan in case a last-minute replacement was needed.

She will return to NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston, the home base for the agency's astronaut corps, to be considered for an assignment to a future mission, officials said in a statement.

Source: https://spaceflightnow.com/2018/01/19/astronaut-jeanette-epps-bumped-from-space-station-flight/ [spaceflightnow.com]

Also at The Verge [theverge.com] and ArsTechnica [arstechnica.com]


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