Local astronaut heads to space today
FROM STAFF REPORTS Gulf Breeze News news@gulfbreezenews.com

NASA Pilot Alan Poindexter steps off the shuttle training aircraft. Poindexter will pilot the STS-122 mission into outer space where crews will launch the European Space Agency's Columbus laboratory into orbit.

The sky has never been the limit for Pensacola Junior College graduate and NASA pilot/Navy Cmdr. Alan Poindexter.

The naval aviator is one of an eight-member crew aboard the Atlantis space shuttle set to launch today for the STS-122/1E mission. The mission will deliver the European Space Agency's Columbus Laboratory to the International Space Station (ISS), currently in orbit 220 miles above Earth.

Although Poindexter is originally from Rockville, Md. and currently lives in Houston, the astronaut says he still considers the Pensacola Bay Area a second home. During his time here from 1980 to 1983 Poindexter met his wife, the former Lisa Pfeiffer, whose parents live in Gulf Breeze. The Pfeiffers traveled to Kennedy Space Center in Brevard County, Fla. to witness the launch first hand. The mission will be Poindexter's first trip into space.

After successfully piloting the 120-ton space shuttle into the outer fringes of the Earth's gravitational pull, Poindexter will supervise his comrades' space walks as they affix the Columbus Laboratory Module to the ISS. The cylindrical module will serve as an additional lab for ISS scientists. Named after the famous explorer from Italy, the Columbus laboratory will give an enormous boost to current European experiment facilities in weightlessness and to the research capabilities of the ISS once it becomes an integral part of the space station.

Alater mission will deliver the Japanese Experiment Module "Kib" - which means hope in Japanese. With the successful addition of the Columbus Module and Kib, ISS capacity will double from three to six crewmembers.

For more information about the mission, visit www.nasa.gov.