Zena Cardman prepares for her first spaceflight
Former PAL student and NASA astronaut Zena Cardman was recently featured by NASA’s Image of the Day, as she prepared for her upcoming journey into space.
Cardman will serve as Commander of SpaceX Crew-11, scheduled to launch to the International Space Station (ISS) this July. While she has travelled to Antarctica several times with the PAL team, this will be her first flight into space. She will remain in orbit with the rest of the crew for approximately one year as part of a long-duration science expedition aboard the ISS.
Cardman was originally scheduled to fly as part of SpaceX Crew-9, until that mission was shifted to accommodate the return of astronauts Barry E. Wilmore and Sunita Williams.
Hugh Ducklow, past PAL Principal Investigator, shared these thoughts on Zena’s previous work with PAL…
Zena was a member of my LMG 0901 and Palmer Station 2011-12 microbial oceanography field teams. On the LMG 2009 cruise Zena performed all the flow cytometric determinations of bacterial abundance, and participated in the recovery and redeployment of the PAL-LTER moored sediment trap. During the PAL11-12 season she and field team member Luke McKay did all the microbial biogeochemistry field sampling from the Palmer fleet of inflatable Zodiacs, twice per week from October to April.
Zena has had a long wait to get into space, and it’s typical that she would jump in with both feet, serving as Mission Commander on the year-long IIS/SpaceEx Mission. I can’t believe that it’s 20 years since Zena joined our team.
Once again, the entire PAL team wishes Zena and the Crew-11 team a safe voyage and successful mission!
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