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Daniel Michio TANI
ISS Flight Engineer
Soyuz TMA Flight Engineer
NASA astronaut
DATE AND PLACE OF BIRTH: Born February 1, 1961 in Ridley
Park Pennsylvania, but considers Lombard Illinois, to be
his hometown.
EDUCATION: Graduated from Glenbard East High School,
Lombard, Illinois, in 1979; received a bachelor and a master
of science degree in mechanical engineering from Massachusetts
Institute of Technology (MIT) in 1984 and 1988, respectively.
MARITAL STATUS: Married to the former Jane Egan.
AWARDS:
Orbital Sciences Corporation Outstanding Technical Achievement
Award, 1993.
MEMBERSHIP IN ORGANIZATIONS:
Japanese American Citizens League;
Alpha Delta Phi Fraternity;
Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association.
HOBBIES: golf, flying, running, tennis, music, cooking.
In 1984 he started working at Hughes Aircraft Corporation
in El Segundo, California as a design engineer in the Space
and Communications group. In 1986, he returned to MIT and
received his master’s degree in mechanical engineering
in 1988, specializing in human factors and group decision
making. After graduation, Tani worked for Bolt Beranek
and Newman in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in the experimental
psychology department.
In 1988, Tani joined Orbital Sciences Corporation (OSC)
in Dulles Virginia, initially as a senior structures engineer,
and then as the mission operations manager for the Transfer
Orbit Stage (TOS). During the launch of the Advanced Communications
Technology Satellite (ACTS) in the course of Space Shuttle
Discovery STS-51 mission in 1993, he served as the TOS
flight operations lead, working with the Shuttle Flight
Director at MCC-H.
Tani then moved to the air launched Pegasus unmanned rocket
program as the launch operations manager, responsible for
the development of launch documentation and also for leading
the team of engineers who worked in the control room.
Having completed two years of training and evaluation at
Johnson Space Center in 1996-1998, he qualified for flight
assignment as a mission specialist. After that he held
technical duties in the Astronaut Office Computer Support
Branch. On January 29, 2001 he was assigned to the STS-108
crew.
He made his first space flight on December 5-17, 2001 as
Mission Specialist 2/Flight Engineer (MS-2/FE) of the Shuttle
Endeavour STS-108 mission carrying Rafaello Multi-Purpose
Logistics Module. The main objective of the mission was
to rotate the crew of the International Space Station and
to deliver cargoes for the Expedition-4 crew (ISS-4). In
the course of the mission he performed a 4 hours and 12
minutes space walk to wrap thermal blankets around ISS
Solar Array Gimbals. The mission duration was 11 days 19
hours 35 minutes and 42 seconds.
He is currently training for ISS-11 as the backup flight
engineer and mission specialist of the ISS.
June 2004.
Based on Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center data, NASA, USA.
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