National Aeronautics and Space Administration Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center Houston, Texas 77058
Biographical Data

Nicole Passonno Stott
NASA Astronaut

PERSONAL DATA:  Born in Albany, New York.  Her hometown is Clearwater, Florida.  She enjoys flying, snow skiing, SCUBA diving, woodworking, painting, and gardening.

EDUCATION:  Clearwater High School, Clearwater, Florida, 1980.
B.S., Aeronautical Engineering, Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, 1987.
M.S., Engineering Management, University of  Central Florida, 1992.

SPECIAL HONORS:  Aircraft Operations Division, Newt Myers Team Spirit Award, KSC Public Affairs Certificate of Appreciation for Service; NASA Exceptional Achievement Medal; NASA Certificates of Commendation; NASA Performance Awards; NASA On-the-Spot Award; Lockheed Certificate of Appreciation.

EXPERIENCE:  Ms. Stott began her career in 1987 as a structural design engineer with Pratt and Whitney Government Engines in West Palm Beach, Florida.  She spent a year with the Advanced Engines Group performing structural analyses of advanced jet engine component designs. 

Nicole Stott is an instrument rated private pilot.

NASA EXPERIENCE:  In 1988, Ms. Stott joined NASA at the Kennedy Space Center (KSC), Florida as an Operations Engineer in the Orbiter Processing Facility (OPF).  After 6 months, she was detailed to the Director of Shuttle Processing as part of a two-person team tasked with assessing the overall efficiency of Shuttle processing flows, and implementing tools for measuring the effectiveness of improvements.  She was the NASA KSC Lead for a joint Ames/KSC software project to develop intelligent scheduling tools.  The Ground Processing Scheduling System (GPSS) was developed as the technology demonstrator for this project.  GPSS was a success at KSC, and also a commercial success that is part of the PeopleSoft suite of software products.  During her time at KSC, Ms. Stott also held a variety of positions within NASA Shuttle Processing, including Vehicle Operations Engineer; NASA Convoy Commander; Shuttle Flow Director for Endeavour; and Orbiter Project Engineer for Columbia.  During her last two years at KSC, she was a member of the Space Station Hardware Integration Office and relocated to Huntington Beach, CA where she served as the NASA Project Lead for the ISS truss elements under construction at the Boeing Space Station facility.  In 1998, she joined the Johnson Space Center (JSC) team in Houston, TX as a member of the NASA Aircraft Operations Division, where she served as a Flight Simulation Engineer (FSE) on the Shuttle Training Aircraft (STA).

Selected as a mission specialist by NASA in July 2000, Nicole reported for astronaut candidate training in August 2000.  Following the completion of two years of training and evaluation, she was assigned technical duties in the Astronaut Office Station Operations Branch, where she performed crew evaluations of station payloads.  She also worked as a support astronaut for the Expedition 10 crew and as an ISS CAPCOM.  In April 2006 she was a crew member on the NEEMO 9 mission (NASA Extreme Environment Mission Operations) where she lived and worked with a 6 person crew on the longest duration NEEMO mission to date for 18 days on the Aquarius undersea research habitat.  The NEEMO9 mission served as an analog for future lunar operations -- the crew tested advanced space suit design concepts, robotic devices for surface-based exploration, construction and communication techniques, and advanced tele-medicine hardware and techniques.

In preparation for a long duration space flight, Nicole completed a Russian language immersion class in Moscow,  Russia, and ISS system training in Russia, Japan, Germany, and Canada at each of the international partner training sites and served as a backup crewmember to Expedition 18 and a prime crewmember for Expeditions 20 and 21.  She is currently assigned to STS-133 and training in preparation for a targeted launch in September 2010.  The STS-133 mission is planned as the final Space Shuttle flight and will deliver the Permanent Multi-purpose Logistics Module (PMM) and an Express Logistics Carrier (ELC4).

SPACE FLIGHT EXPERIENCE:  Nicole completed her first long duration space flight as a Flight Engineer on the ISS Expeditions 20 and 21 crews.  She launched to the International Space Station on the Space Shuttle Discovery with the crew of STS-128 on August 28, 2009.  Nicole performed one spacewalk along with her STS-128 crewmate Danny Olivas with a total duration of 6 hours and 39 minutes.  During her tour of duty on ISS she had the opportunity to participate in many interesting activities -- along with two of her ISS crewmates she executed the first track and capture of the Japanese cargo vehicle HTV, she worked as part of a 6-person crew to install the new treadmill and maintain the ISS systems, and conducted a wide variety of science and research activities.   She returned on the Space Shuttle Atlantis with the crew of STS-129 on November 29, 2009, having logged 91 days in space.  

JANUARY 2010