Piers John Sellers OBE (11 April 1955 – 23 December 2016) was a British-American meteorologist, NASA astronaut[1] and Director of the Earth Science Division at NASA/GSFC.
[2] Before joining the astronaut corps, Sellers worked at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center on research into how the Earth's biosphere and atmosphere interact.
[9] Sellers and his wife left the UK in 1982, moving to the United States, where he began his NASA career as a research meteorologist at Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland.
[1][3] Sellers' work in the field of meteorology focused primarily on computer modelling of climate systems, but he maintained his aircraft pilot skills.
[1] He retired as an astronaut in 2011[12] and then served as deputy director of sciences and exploration at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md.
STS-112 was the first shuttle mission to use a camera on the External Tank, providing a live view of the launch to flight controllers and NASA TV viewers.
Sellers and Mike Fossum performed three EVAs to test the 50-foot robotic arm boom extension as a work platform.
They removed and replaced a cable that provides power, command and data and video connections to the station's mobile transporter rail car.
They also tested techniques for inspecting and repairing the reinforced carbon-carbon segments that protect the shuttle's nose cone and leading edge of the wings.