STS-44 was a

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 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 ...

mission using ''

Atlantis Atlantis ( grc, Ἀτλαντὶς νῆσος, , island of Atlas (mythology), Atlas) is a fictional island mentioned in an allegory on the hubris of nations in Plato's works ''Timaeus (dialogue), Timaeus'' and ''Critias (dialogue), Critias'' ...

'' that launched on November 24, 1991. It was a

U.S. Department of Defense The United States Department of Defense (DoD, USDOD or DOD) is an executive branch department of the federal government charged with coordinating and supervising all agencies and functions of the government directly related to national secur ...

(DoD) space mission.

Crew

Backup crew

Crew seating arrangements

Mission highlights

The launch was on November 24, 1991, at 23:44:00 UTC. A launch set for November 19, 1991, was delayed due to replacement and testing of a malfunctioning redundant inertial measurement unit on the

Inertial Upper Stage The Inertial Upper Stage (IUS), originally designated the Interim Upper Stage, was a two-stage, solid-fueled space launch system developed by Boeing for the United States Air Force beginning in 1976 for raising payloads from low Earth orbit to h ...

(IUS) booster attached to the

Defense Support Program The Defense Support Program (DSP) is a program of the United States Space Force that operated the reconnaissance satellites which form the principal component of the ''Satellite Early Warning System'' used by the United States. DSP satellite ...

(DSP) satellite. The launch was reset for November 24 and was delayed by 13 minutes to allow an orbiting spacecraft to pass and to allow external tank liquid oxygen replenishment after minor repairs to a valve in the liquid oxygen replenishment system in the mobile launcher platform. Launch weight was . The mission was dedicated to the Department of Defense. The unclassified payload included a

(DSP) satellite, DSP-16 attached to Inertial Upper Stage (IUS-14), deployed on flight day one. Cargo bay and middeck payloads included the Interim Operational Contamination Monitor (IOCM), Terra-Scout, Military Man in Space (M88-1), Air Force Maui Optical Site (AMOS), Cosmic Radiation Effects and Activation Monitor (CREAM), Shuttle Activation Monitor (SAM),

Radiation Monitoring Equipment Radiation dosimetry in the fields of health physics and radiation protection is the measurement, calculation and assessment of the ionizing radiation dose absorbed by an object, usually the human body. This applies both internally, due to ingested ...

(RME III), Visual Function Tester (VFT-1), Ultraviolet Plume Instrument (UVPI), Bioreactor Flow, and Extended Duration Orbiter Medical Project, a series of investigations in support of

Extended Duration Orbiter The Extended Duration Orbiter (EDO) program was a project by NASA to prepare for long-term (months) microgravity research aboard Space Station Freedom, which later evolved into the International Space Station. Scientists and NASA needed practical ...

. The landing was on December 1, 1991, at 22:34:44 UTC, Runway 5,

Edwards Air Force Base Edwards Air Force Base (AFB) is a United States Air Force installation in California. Most of the base sits in Kern County, but its eastern end is in San Bernardino County and a southern arm is in Los Angeles County. The hub of the base is E ...

California California is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States, located along the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the List of states and territori ...

. The rollout distance was , and the rollout time was 107 seconds. The landing weight was . The landing was originally scheduled for

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 ...

on December 4, 1991, but the ten-day mission was shortened and the landing rescheduled following the November 30, 1991, on-orbit failure of one of three orbiter

inertial measurement unit An inertial measurement unit (IMU) is an electronic device that measures and reports a body's specific force, angular rate, and sometimes the orientation of the body, using a combination of accelerometers, gyroscopes, and sometimes magnetometer ...

s. The lengthy rollout was due to minimal braking for test. ''Atlantis'' returned to Kennedy on December 8, 1991. This was also the final shuttle landing on a dry lake bed runway.

Wake-up calls

NASA began a tradition of playing music to astronauts during the

Project Gemini Project Gemini () was NASA's second human spaceflight program. Conducted between projects Mercury and Apollo, Gemini started in 1961 and concluded in 1966. The Gemini spacecraft carried a two-astronaut crew. Ten Gemini crews and 16 individual ...

, and first used music to wake up a flight crew during

Apollo 15 Apollo 15 (July 26August 7, 1971) was the ninth crewed mission in the United States' Apollo program and the fourth to Moon landing, land on the Moon. It was the first List of Apollo missions#Alphabetical mission types, J mission, with a ...

. Each track is specially chosen, often by the astronauts' families, and usually has a special meaning to an individual member of the crew, or is applicable to their daily activities.

References

External links

NASA mission summary

{{Orbital launches in 1991 Space Shuttle missions Edwards Air Force Base Spacecraft launched in 1991 Department of Defense Space Shuttle missions