STS-60 was the first mission of the U.S./Russian
Shuttle-Mir Program, which carried
Sergei K. Krikalev, the first Russian cosmonaut to fly aboard a
Space Shuttle
The Space Shuttle is a retired, partially reusable low Earth orbital spacecraft system operated from 1981 to 2011 by the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) as part of the Space Shuttle program. Its official program na ...
. The mission used
NASA
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA ) is an independent agency of the US federal government responsible for the civil space program, aeronautics research, and space research.
NASA was established in 1958, succeeding t ...
Space Shuttle ''Discovery'', which lifted off from
Launch Pad 39A
Launch Complex 39A (LC-39A) is the first of Launch Complex 39's three launch pads, located at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Merritt Island, Florida. The pad, along with Launch Complex 39B, were first designed for the Saturn V launch vehicle. Ty ...
on 3 February 1994 from
Kennedy Space Center
The John F. Kennedy Space Center (KSC, originally known as the NASA Launch Operations Center), located on Merritt Island, Florida, is one of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration's (NASA) ten field centers. Since December 1968 ...
,
Florida
Florida is a state located in the Southeastern region of the United States. Florida is bordered to the west by the Gulf of Mexico, to the northwest by Alabama, to the north by Georgia, to the east by the Bahamas and Atlantic Ocean, and to ...
. The mission carried the
Wake Shield Facility
Wake Shield Facility (WSF) was a NASA experimental science platform that was placed in low Earth orbit by the Space Shuttle. It was a diameter, free-flying stainless steel disk.
The WSF was deployed using the Space Shuttle's Canadarm. The WS ...
experiment and a
SPACEHAB
Astrotech Corporation, formerly Spacehab Inc., is a technology incubator headquartered in Austin, Texas. Astrotech uses technology sourced internally and from research institutions, government laboratories, and universities to fund, manage and s ...
module, developed by SPACEHAB Inc., into orbit, and carried out a live bi-directional audio and downlink link-up with the cosmonauts aboard the Russian space station ''
Mir
''Mir'' (russian: Мир, ; ) was a space station that operated in low Earth orbit from 1986 to 2001, operated by the Soviet Union and later by Russia. ''Mir'' was the first modular space station and was assembled in orbit from 1986 to&n ...
''.
Crew
Mission highlights
![STS-60 Launch](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/68/STS-60_Launch.jpg)
After
External Tank
The Space Shuttle external tank (ET) was the component of the Space Shuttle launch vehicle that contained the liquid hydrogen fuel and liquid oxygen oxidizer. During lift-off and ascent it supplied the fuel and oxidizer under pressure to ...
(ET) separation and
main engine cutoff (MECO), a 2.5 minutes OMS burn was initiated at 12:52 UTC that circularized ''Discovery''s orbit from a orbit to . Shortly after liftoff, pilot
Kenneth S. Reightler Jr. experienced problems with his portable headset. The problem was traced to the Headset Interface Unit (HIU) and that unit was swapped with a flight spare. The payload bay doors were opened and around 13:45 UTC the crew was given a go for on-orbit operations. Shortly after reaching orbit, the STS-60 crew began checking ''Discovery''s systems and activating the commercially developed SPACEHAB laboratory module and several of its experiments. The crew also activated one group of the payload bay
Getaway Special
Getaway Special was a NASA program that offered interested individuals, or groups, opportunities to fly small experiments aboard the Space Shuttle. Over the 20-year history of the program, over 170 individual missions were flown. The program, whi ...
(GAS) canisters.
SPACEHAB module experiments that were activated included the Organic Separations payload, which is designed to investigate cell separation techniques for possible pharmaceutical and
biotechnology
Biotechnology is the integration of natural sciences and engineering sciences in order to achieve the application of organisms, cells, parts thereof and molecular analogues for products and services. The term ''biotechnology'' was first used b ...
processing, and the Equipment for Controlled Liquid Phase Sintering Experiment (ECLiPSE) package, a furnace designed to explore the possibilities of creating stronger, lighter and more durable metals for use in bearings, cutting tools and electronics. SPACEHAB middeck experiments that were activated included Immune-1, which will look at the immune systems of rats in orbit, and the Commercial Protein Crystal Growth package, which is attempting to grow large, well- ordered protein crystals so that their structures can be more easily studied. The crew sleep period then began at 6:10 pm EST.
At 11:30 UTC on 5 February 1994, ''Discovery'' inadvertently flew through a cloud of wastewater ice crystals.
Flight controller
Flight controllers are personnel who aid space flight by working in such Mission Control Centers as NASA's Mission Control Center or ESA's European Space Operations Centre. Flight controllers work at computer consoles and use telemetry to mon ...
s determined that approximately one tablespoon of wastewater leaked out of a waste dump nozzle.
The
Wake Shield Facility
Wake Shield Facility (WSF) was a NASA experimental science platform that was placed in low Earth orbit by the Space Shuttle. It was a diameter, free-flying stainless steel disk.
The WSF was deployed using the Space Shuttle's Canadarm. The WS ...
deployment operation was canceled on 5 February 1994. This delay was the result of several factors, including
radio interference
Electromagnetic interference (EMI), also called radio-frequency interference (RFI) when in the radio frequency spectrum, is a disturbance generated by an external source that affects an electrical circuit by electromagnetic induction, electrosta ...
and an inability to read the Wake Shield Facility's status lights when the orbiter's payload bay is in full
sunlight
Sunlight is a portion of the electromagnetic radiation given off by the Sun, in particular infrared, visible, and ultraviolet light. On Earth, sunlight is scattered and filtered through Earth's atmosphere, and is obvious as daylight when t ...
. Deployment originally was scheduled for 16:00 UTC, but after grappling the free-flyer and lifting it out of the cargo bay and into the pre-deploy position, crew members and investigators on the ground were unable to tell whether power and transmitter status lights were giving the proper indications. After determining that the problem was not a systems failure, but difficulty in reading the status lights, the crew and flight controllers prepared for another release attempt. Interference between the radio transmitter on the Wake Shield Facility and the receiver on its payload bay carrier resulted in a one-day delay.
![Wake shield facility](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c1/Wake_shield_facility.jpg)
Wake Shield Facility deployment was also canceled on 6 February 1994 during its orbit 53 opportunity at 17:25 UTC, WSF and flight controllers worked on problems with the Pitch and Roll sensors on WSF's Attitude, Direction and Control system. Astronaut Jan Davis moved the wrist joint on the Remote Manipulator System (RMS) arm (Canadarm) to try to point WSF's Horizon Sensor into the
Sun
The Sun is the star at the center of the Solar System. It is a nearly perfect ball of hot plasma, heated to incandescence by nuclear fusion reactions in its core. The Sun radiates this energy mainly as light, ultraviolet, and infrared radi ...
in an attempt to warm up the sensor's electronics package. The last deployment opportunity for on 6 December 1994 was a 50-minute window beginning at 19:23 UTC on orbit 54 but WSF was not ready. It was left mounted on the Canadarm during the crew sleep period while ground controllers considered their options. On its perch at the end of the RMS over night, WSF was able to grow 2
Gallium Arsenide
Gallium arsenide (GaAs) is a III-V direct band gap semiconductor with a Zincblende (crystal structure), zinc blende crystal structure.
Gallium arsenide is used in the manufacture of devices such as microwave frequency integrated circuits, monoli ...
(GaAs) thin films. The next deployment opportunity on 7 February 1994 would have been during orbit 67 but payload controllers and flight controllers determined that there would be insufficient time to safely develop contingency procedures in the event that WSF was unable to maintain stable attitude control without the use of its Horizon Sensor. It was decided that for the remainder of the mission, all WSF operations would take place at the end of the Canadarm and there would be no WSF free-flying operations on the mission.
On 7 February 1994, work had been progressing in the SPACEHAB-2 module on a number of experiments. These included the Three-Dimensional Microgravity Accelerometer (3-DMA) experiment, Astroculture experiment (ASC-3), Bioserve Pilot Lab (BPL), Commercial Generic Bioprocessing Apparatus experiment (CGBA), Commercial Protein Crystal Growth experiment (CPCG), Controlled Liquid Phase Sintering-Hab (ECLiPSE-Hab), Immune Response Studies Experiment (IMMUNE-01), Organic Separation experiment (ORSEP), Space Experiment Facility (SEF),
Penn State #Redirect Pennsylvania State University
The Pennsylvania State University (Penn State or PSU) is a Public university, public Commonwealth System of Higher Education, state-related Land-grant university, land-grant research university with campu ...
Biomodule (PSB) and the Space Acceleration Measurement System (SAMS) Experiment. Sergei Krikalev had been operating the SAMS experiment.
At 12:38 UTC on 8 February 1994, ''
Good Morning America
''Good Morning America'' (often abbreviated as ''GMA'') is an American morning television program that is broadcast on ABC. It debuted on November 3, 1975, and first expanded to weekends with the debut of a Sunday edition on January 3, 1993. Th ...
'' performed a live bi-directional audio and downlink video hookup between astronauts on board ''Discovery'' and 3
cosmonauts
An astronaut (from the Ancient Greek (), meaning 'star', and (), meaning 'sailor') is a person trained, equipped, and deployed by a human spaceflight program to serve as a commander or crew member aboard a spacecraft. Although generally r ...
on board the
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen national ...
''Mir'' Space Station. ''Discovery'' was over the
Pacific Ocean
The Pacific Ocean is the largest and deepest of Earth's five oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Southern Ocean (or, depending on definition, to Antarctica) in the south, and is bounded by the continen ...
and ''Mir'' was over the
southern United States
The Southern United States (sometimes Dixie, also referred to as the Southern States, the American South, the Southland, or simply the South) is a geographic and cultural region of the United States of America. It is between the Atlantic Ocean ...
. Afterwards, work progressed with SPACEHAB-2 module and middeck experiments while Wake Shield Facility continued operations at the end of the Canadarm. A slight problem developed with the status indicators on the 3-DMA experiment and the crew downlinked video to aid in troubleshooting. The astronauts ended Flight Day 6 at 00:10 UTC (9 February 1994).
Flight Day 7 (9 February 1994) began at 08:20 UTC.
ODERACS operations were scheduled for 14:55 UTC during Orbit 97 and BREMSAT deploy was scheduled for 19:50 UTC. The WSF experiment was brought to an end and a telemetry problem with the facility prevented the growth of the 6th and final thin film on board WSF. Five other thin films were grown throughout the mission before Wake Shield Facility was berthed. WSF closeout was completed by 13:10 UTC. At 12:58 UTC, commander Charles F. Bolden reported to the ground that one of the
Thermal Protection System
Atmospheric entry is the movement of an object from outer space into and through the gases of an atmosphere of a planet, dwarf planet, or natural satellite. There are two main types of atmospheric entry: ''uncontrolled entry'', such as the entr ...
(TPS) blankets around ''Discovery''s forward RCS thruster below Bolden's cabin window was slightly peeled back. Jan Davis was directed to halt her power down and stowage of the Remote Manipulator System (Canadarm) and use the arm to perform a camera survey of the front left side of the orbiter. At 19:20 UTC, the BREMSAT satellite momentum wheel was spun up and BREMSAT was ejected into space at 19:23 UTC at the rate of .
On Flight Day 8 (10 February 1994), the astronauts performed a number of operations to prepare ''Discovery'' for its trip home. These included Hot-Fire tests of all 44 Reaction Control Systems jets, Flight control system checkout, SAREX stow, CPCG Stow, ASC-3 Deactivation, ORSEP Deactivation, stowage of all non-essential cabin items and
Ku-Band
The Ku band () is the portion of the electromagnetic spectrum in the microwave range of frequencies from 12 to 18 gigahertz (GHz). The symbol is short for "K-under" (originally german: Kurz-unten), because it is the lower part of the ori ...
antenna stow. Flight Day 9 (11 February 1994) operations included the powerup of all critical orbiter entry systems (Group B powerup), SAMS deactivation, CAPL Deactivation and De-Orbit preps. Ground controllers gave ''Discovery'' a go to start SPACEHAB deactivation at 13:00 UTC and this was complete by 15:20 UTC. Landing was at KSC runway 15 at 19:18:41 UTC.
See also
*
List of human spaceflights
This is a list of all human spaceflights throughout history. Beginning in 1961 with the flight of Yuri Gagarin aboard Vostok 1, human spaceflight occurs when a human crew flies a spacecraft into outer space. Human spaceflight is distinguished ...
*
List of Space Shuttle missions
*
Outline of space science
The following outline is provided as an overview and topical guide to space science:
Space science encompasses all of the scientific disciplines that involve space exploration and study natural phenomena and physical bodies occurring in outer ...
*
Space Shuttle
The Space Shuttle is a retired, partially reusable low Earth orbital spacecraft system operated from 1981 to 2011 by the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) as part of the Space Shuttle program. Its official program na ...
References
NASA mission summary
External links
{{Orbital launches in 1994
Space Shuttle missions
Spacecraft launched in 1994
February 1994 events
1994 in Florida
Spacecraft which reentered in 1994