Janice Voss, shuttle astronaut, remembered for NASA contributions

Janice Voss began her NASA career while still a student at Purdue University. Janice Voss was one of six women to fly at least five times on the space shuttle.

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Four years after returning to Earth for a final time, Voss transferred from Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas, to NASA's Ames Research Center at Moffett Field, Calif., where she headed the science program for the agency's Kepler space observatory. Designed to search for Earth size planets orbiting distant stars, Kepler was launched in March 2009 and to date has confirmed 61 exoplanets and identified more than 2,000 planetary candidates.

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Voss left Ames in 2007 and most recently served as the payload lead in the astronaut office's space station branch at the Johnson Space Center.

"As the payload commander of two space shuttle missions, Janice was responsible for paving the way for experiments that we now perform on a daily basis on the International Space Station," chief astronaut Peggy Whitson said in the NASA statement. "By improving the way scientists are able to analyze their data, and establishing the experimental methods and hardware necessary to perform these unique experiments, Janice and her crew ensured that our space station would be the site of discoveries that we haven't even imagined."

"During the last few years, Janice continued to lead our office's efforts to provide the best possible procedures to crews operating experiments on the station today," she said. "Even more than Janice's professional contributions, we will miss her positive outlook on the world and her determination to make all things better."

Path to space

A native of Rockford, Ill., Voss received her bachelor of science in engineering science from Purdue University in 1975, a master of science degree in electrical engineering and a doctorate in aeronautics and astronautics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1977 and 1987, respectively.

Voss' first work with NASA was during her undergraduate studies at Purdue. A member of Johnson Space Center's co-op program, she worked on computer simulations in the engineering and development directorate in the years leading up to the start of the shuttle-era. Voss returned to the Johnson in 1977 for a year, working as a crew trainer teaching entry guidance and navigation.

Before becoming an astronaut, Voss worked at the Orbital Sciences Corporation, supporting mission integration and flight operations for the Transfer Orbit Stage that launched the Advanced Communications Technology Satellite from the space shuttle in September 1993, and NASA's ill-fated Mars Observer from a Titan rocket in 1992.

A multiple recipient of NASA's Space Flight Medal, Voss donated her personal papers documenting her spaceflight career to Purdue Libraries' division of archives and special collections in 2009.

"Knowing that someone else got from here to there brightened many of my days at Purdue," Voss said at the time, referring to the university's earlier astronaut alums. "Maybe my papers will help someone else feel that they aren't that different from me."

"If I can do it, then so can they," Voss said.

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