Tracy Dyson blasts off again!

Honorary AirUCI team member 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.  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.

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. 

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 dedicated to highlighting 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.  She remains close to Professors Finlayson-Pitts and Hemminger, as well as a number of our researchers.

Bon voyage, Tracy, and happy landings!