Posted: Sun, Sep 14, 2003, 9:46 AM ET (1346 GMT)
NASA announced late Friday that it will add three people, including two former astronauts, to a task force overseeing NASA’s preparations for returning the space shuttle to flight. Added to the Stafford-Covey Task Group were Kathryn Thornton, a former shuttle astronaut who flew on three flights, including the STS-61 Hubble repair mission in 1993; Susan Helms, a former astronaut who spent over five months in space on the ISS Expedition Two crew; and Christine Fox, vice president of the Center for Naval Analyses, a federally-funded research and development center. Thornton is currently a physics professor at the University of Virginia and Helms, an Air Force colonel, is chief of the Space Control Division of the Air Force Space Command. The three new appointments bring to 30 the number of people on the task force, all but one of whom are not NASA employees. The task force, led by former astronauts Tom Stafford and Richard Covey, is designed to oversee the implementation of the return-to-flight recommendations made by the Columbia Accident Investigation Board last month.

Related Links:

•  NASA press release