NASA Astronaut Tracy Dyson calls AirUCI from the ISS!

It’s definitely not an ordinary day when you receive a video call—literally from the stars!

Honorary AirUCI team member and NASA Astronaut Tracy Caldwell Dyson launched on March 23, 2024 for her third trip into space, taking off from Kazakhstan on the Roscosmos Soyuz MS-25 spacecraft for a six-month mission aboard the International Space Station.  Related article When she offered to place a video call to the AirUCI Institute from onboard the ISS, we eagerly accepted! 

On July 8th at 1:00 pm Pacific time, Tracy called AirUCI to answer questions that we had compiled over a few weeks.  We were able to see and hear her live as she answered many of the questions, which were asked by AirUCI Co-Director Barbara Finlayson-Pitts who was MC for this event.  We were thrilled to have this chance to talk with Tracy directly and we shared it with a wide audience, remote and in person.  In addition, the event was recorded for viewing now and in the future. 
Watch the video call!  

This was a "crew-designated event" and a very special opportunity.  There were more than 60 people in the room as we spoke with Tracy—including the 2024 SARP class of 28 students—and several hundred viewers tuned in remotely to watch live on YouTube.  Among these were students attending other classes in multiple states and viewers in other countries.

Tracy, a former postdoc in AirUCI’s Finlayson-Pitts and Hemminger groups, was recently profiled as one of 13 female astronauts with connections to UC campuses. Read the article  In fact, it was during this time as a postdoc at UCI that she received notice that she had been accepted into the astronaut corps. 

In August 2007 she launched aboard the space shuttle Endeavour.  In 2010 she spent six months on the ISS, completing three spacewalks and logging more than 22 hours of extra-vehicular activity (EVA).  One of these spacewalks had Tracy repairing a malfunctioning coolant pump outside the space station. 

Before, between, and after her trips into space, Tracy has held multiple roles within the Astronaut Office, working inside Houston’s Mission Control Center (MCC-H) as spacecraft communicator (CAPCOM) for both space shuttle and space station operations, serving as lead CAPCOM for various ISS missions, flight software verification in the Shuttle Avionics Integration Laboratory (SAIL), and supporting shuttle launch and landing operations at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center, Florida. Tracy is fluent in Russian and American sign language, making her a valuable member of teams working with the Russian space program.

Upon returning from her mission on the space station, she initiated and led several projects to improve training and operations aboard the ISS, most notably developing the EVA Qualification training flow (EVQ) for Astronaut Candidates. Tracy also served as the on-camera host for NASA’s TV series “StationLife,” spanning over 10 episodes and 5 years of replay, a program that highlighted science and technology driven by the work aboard ISS.

Tracy has been kind enough to return to UCI three times to give public lectures on her background and her experiences as an astronaut, once in 2007, again in 2011, and in 2014 as part of a NASA week-long presentation event in multiple Los Angeles-area venues.  Also, in 2016 as part of AirUCI's EACCO outreach endeavor, Tracy Skyped in to join our outreach event, talking to our students and postdocs about her career path and experiences at NASA.  We hope she will return again in the next few months to give another public lecture about her experiences in space.  She remains close to Professors Finlayson-Pitts and Hemminger, as well as a number of AirUCI researchers.

AirUCI thanks the following people for their excellent assistance in organizing this video call:

• Laura Hearon and John Stephen of NASA’s Astronaut Office
• Tatiana Overly, Physical Sciences Director of Communications and External Relations
• David Rotter, Jim Dao, and Pyisone Win of the Physical Sciences Computing Services Group
• AirUCI faculty Don Blake, organizer of UCI’s SARP program (offered through NASA), who kindly allowed us to receive Tracy’s call during their class time