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Kimbrough Walks in Space

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Army Lt. Col. Shane Kimbrough, MS 1998, was among seven astronauts on crew for the space shuttle Endeavour which flew into orbit on November 14, 2008 for a 15-day mission. Three of the seven people on crew are graduates from Georgia Tech: Eric A. Boe, Shane Kimbrough, and Sandra A. Magnus.

The Georgia Tech community breathlessly watched Endeavor's progress as it raced across the Atlanta skyline on November 20 and as images from inside the shuttle were broadcast on the jumbo-tron at the Georgia Tech Yellow Jacket's victorious game over the Miami Hurricanes.

Kimbrough first worked for the NASA team as part of the Aircraft Operations Division at Ellington Field in Houston, where he served as a flight simulation engineer on the Shuttle Training Aircraft. He was selected as an astronaut in 2004. This mission was Kimbrough's first spaceflight. On this mission, he was responsible for repairs outside of the space station, honored with the task of two, seven hour space walks.

The mission parameters included delivering supplies to the International Space Station (ISS), using robotics to repair and improve the ISS, and install a new toilet with a water purification system. These upgrades will allow the ISS to expand from a three person crew to six, including Sandy Magnus.

Space shuttle Endeavour and its 747 ferry aircraft finished a trek across the country on December 12, 2008 with a perfect landing at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Now that Endeavour is back at Kennedy, technicians will process the vehicle and prepare if for its next scheduled return to space on the STS-127 mission in 2009.

Kimbrough graduated from the Stewart School of Industrial Engineering with a master's in Operations Research in 1998. Coupled with his education from the U.S. Military Academy, Kimbrough's illustrious career has been marked by earning an Army Major rank, teaching math at West Point (calculus and statistics), and performing as a flight simulation engineer on the Shuttle Training Aircraft with NASA.

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  • Workflow Status:Published
  • Created By:Barbara Christopher
  • Created:12/16/2008
  • Modified By:Fletcher Moore
  • Modified:10/07/2016