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MARIO RUNCO, JR.
Runco was born in the
Bronx, New York, on January 26, 1952. Raised in the Highbridge
section of the Bronx near Yankee Stadium, his family moved to
Yonkers, New York, in his early teen years. He is married to the
former Susan Kay Friess of Sylvania, Ohio; they have two children,
Maria and Carl. He enjoys ice hockey, baseball, softball, camping,
model railroads, toy train collecting and astronomy, among other
interests. He played intercollegiate ice hockey on the City College
of New York and Rutgers University teams. Runco’s parents Mario and
Filomena Ragusa Runco, still reside in Yonkers, New York, and Sue’s
parents, Fredrick and Margaret Bidlack Friess, reside in Sylvania,
Ohio. |
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NASA EXPERIENCE: Selected by NASA as an astronaut candidate in
June 1987, Runco qualified for assignment as an astronaut mission
specialist in August of 1988. A veteran of three space flights
(STS-44 in 1991, STS-54 in 1993, and STS-77 in 1996), Runco has
logged over 551 hours in space, which includes a 4.5-hour spacewalk
during his STS-54 mission. His technical assignments to date include
having served in Operations Development, where he assisted in the
design, development and testing of the space shuttle crew escape
system; in Mission Support at the Software Avionics Integration
Laboratory (SAIL), where he performed test and evaluation of space
shuttle mission-specific flight software; at the Kennedy Space
Center as astronaut support, where he assisted in preparing space
shuttle missions for launch and in the Mission Control Center as a
Capsule (Spacecraft) Communicator (CAPCOM). Runco currently serves
as an Earth and planetary scientist; as the lead for Science and
Utilization of the International Space Station’s Destiny Module
Science Window and the Window Observational Research Facility (WORF),
both of which he helped design; as the project manager for the Lunar
Habitation Systems Project Fast Track and as the JSC lead for
spacecraft window optical requirements.
SPACE FLIGHT EXPERIENCE: On his first flight, Runco served on
the crew of STS-44 aboard the Space Shuttle Atlantis, which launched
on the night of November 24, 1991. The primary mission objective was
accomplished with the successful deployment of a Defense Support
Program (DSP) satellite. In addition, the crew conducted two
Military Man-in-Space Earth Observation experiments, three radiation
monitoring experiments, and numerous life sciences experiments in
support of long-duration space flights. The mission concluded after
completing 110 orbits of the Earth. Atlantis returned to a landing
on the lake bed at Edwards Air Force Base, California, on December
1, 1991. Mission duration was 6 days, 22 hours and 50 minutes.
Just over 1 year later, Runco served as a mission specialist on the
crew of STS-54 aboard the Space Shuttle Endeavour. STS-54 (January
13 to 19, 1993) launched and landed at the Kennedy Space Center in
Florida. The 6-day mission featured the deployment of a NASA
Tracking and Data Relay Satellite (TDRS-F) and carried the Diffuse
X-Ray Spectrometer (DXS) in the payload bay. This astronomical
instrument, designed to expand the knowledge of stellar evolution,
scanned the local vicinity of our Milky Way galaxy and recorded the
low-energy X-ray emanations believed to originate from the plasma
remnants of an ancient supernova. Crewmate Greg Harbaugh and Runco
also became the 47th and 48th Americans to walk in space during a
4.5-hour space walk designed to evaluate the limits of human
performance during Extravehicular Activities (EVAs) in anticipation
of the construction of the International Space Station. In what was
called the “Physics of Toys,” which has since become a popular
children’s educational video, the crew also demonstrated how
everyday toys behave in space to an interactive audience of
elementary school students across the United States. Mission
duration was 5 days, 23 hours and 38 minutes.
Runco also served as a mission specialist on the crew of STS-77
aboard the Space Shuttle Endeavour (May 19-29, 1996). STS-77 carried
a number of technology development experiments as well as a suite of
microgravity science experiments. The technology development
experiments included two deployable satellites, both of which he
deployed. For the deploy of the Spartan/Inflatable Antenna
Experiment, Runco was the Remote Manipulator System (Robotic Arm)
operator. The other deployable was a small Satellite Test Unit (STU)
that used residual atmospheric drag and the Earth’s magnetic field
for attitude control and stabilization. STS-77 also featured the
fourth flight of a SpaceHab module as an experiment laboratory.
Runco also filmed some additional Physics of Toys scenes for a
sequel to the original educational video and subsequently made
several appearances on the children’s television show, Sesame
Street. Mission duration was 10 days and 39 minutes.
Fotografie di: Luigi Pizzimenti; Giovanni Colombo e Francisco
Gonzales |
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