Florida — The arrest of an astronaut on an attempted murder charge has not distracted the crew of the upcoming space shuttle mission, even though she had been scheduled to be part of the flight's ground team, the shuttle's commander said Thursday.
"I'm quite confident there will be no impact to our mission," commander Rick Sturckow said at a news conference in Houston. "We've just been focused on our training, which is pretty intensive at this point."
Lisa Nowak had been scheduled to be a Mission Control communicator who talks with the six crew members of space shuttle Atlantis during their journey to the international space station.
NASA relieved her of all mission duties after she was arrested last week in Orlando on charges that she tried to harm Colleen Shipman, a Navy captain and the woman she viewed as a rival for the affections of astronaut Bill Oefelein.
Nowak is charged with attempted murder, attempted kidnapping and three other crimes.
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