STS-97 was 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 ...

mission to the

International Space Station The International Space Station (ISS) is the largest modular space station currently in low Earth orbit. It is a multinational collaborative project involving five participating space agencies: NASA (United States), Roscosmos (Russia), JAXA ( ...

(ISS) flown by Space Shuttle '' Endeavour''. The crew installed the first set of solar arrays to the ISS, prepared a docking port for arrival of the

Destiny Laboratory Module The ''Destiny'' module, also known as the U.S. Lab, is the primary operating facility for U.S. research payloads aboard the International Space Station (ISS). It was berthed to the ''Unity'' module and activated over a period of five days in F ...

, and delivered supplies for the station's crew. It was the last human spaceflight of the 20th century.

Crew

Spacewalks

*'' Tanner and Noriega '' – EVA 1 *EVA 1 Start: 3 December 2000 – 18:35 UTC *EVA 1 End: 4 December 2000 – 02:08 UTC *Duration: 7 hours, 33 minutes *'' Tanner and Noriega '' – EVA 2 *EVA 2 Start: 5 December 2000 – 17:21 UTC *EVA 2 End: 5 December 2000 – 23:58 UTC *Duration: 6 hours, 37 minutes *'' Tanner and Noriega '' – EVA 3 *EVA 3 Start: 7 December 2000 – 16:13 UTC *EVA 3 End: 7 December 2000 – 21:23 UTC *Duration: 5 hours, 10 minutes

Mission highlights

During the 11-day mission, the primary objective was completed, which was to deliver and connect the first set of U.S.-provided solar arrays and the P6 Truss to the

. The astronauts completed three

spacewalks Extravehicular activity (EVA) is any activity done by an astronaut in outer space outside a spacecraft. In the absence of a breathable Earthlike atmosphere, the astronaut is completely reliant on a space suit for environmental support. EVA inc ...

, during which they prepared a docking port for arrival of the

, installed Floating Potential Probes to measure

electrical potential The electric potential (also called the ''electric field potential'', potential drop, the electrostatic potential) is defined as the amount of work energy needed to move a unit of electric charge from a reference point to the specific point in ...

surrounding the station, installed a camera cable outside the

Unity Module upright=1.0, The ''Unity'' module as seen in May 2011 The ''Unity'' connecting module, also known as Node 1, is the first U.S.-built component of the International Space Station (ISS). It connects the Russian and United States segments of th ...

, and transferred supplies, equipment and refuse between ''Endeavour'' and the station. On Flight Day 3, Commander Brent Jett linked ''Endeavour'' to the ISS while above northeast

Kazakhstan Kazakhstan, officially the Republic of Kazakhstan, is a transcontinental country located mainly in Central Asia and partly in Eastern Europe. It borders Russia to the north and west, China to the east, Kyrgyzstan to the southeast, Uzbeki ...

. The successful checkout of the

Extravehicular Mobility Unit The Extravehicular Mobility Unit (EMU) is an independent anthropomorphic spacesuit that provides environmental protection, mobility, life support, and communications for astronauts performing extravehicular activity (EVA) in Earth orbit. Introduc ...

s (EMUs), the Simplified Aid For EVA Rescue (SAFER) units, the

Canadarm Canadarm or Canadarm1 (officially Shuttle Remote Manipulator System or SRMS, also SSRMS) is a series of robotic arms that were used on the Space Shuttle orbiters to deploy, manoeuvre, and capture payloads. After the Space Shuttle ''Columbia ...

(RMS), the Orbiter Space Vision System (OSVS) and the Orbiter Docking System (ODS) were all completed nominally. Also, the ODS centerline camera was installed with no misalignment noted. From inside ''Endeavour'',

Canadian Canadians (french: Canadiens) are people identified with the country of Canada. This connection may be residential, legal, historical or cultural. For most Canadians, many (or all) of these connections exist and are collectively the source of ...

Mission Specialist

Marc Garneau Joseph Jean-Pierre Marc Garneau (born February 23, 1949) is a Canadian politician, retired Royal Canadian Navy officer and former astronaut who served as a Cabinet minister from 2015 to 2021. A member of the Liberal Party, Garneau was the mini ...

used the

to remove the 8 ton stainless steel P6 truss from the payload bay, maneuvering it into an overnight park position to warm its components. Mission Specialists Joseph Tanner and Carlos Noriega moved through ''Endeavours docking tunnel and opened the hatch to the ISS docking port to leave supplies and computer hardware on the doorstep of the Station. On flight day 4, the

Expedition 1 Expedition 1 was the first long-duration stay on the International Space Station (ISS). The three-person crew stayed aboard the station for 136 days, from November 2000 to March 2001. It was the beginning of an uninterrupted human presence on the ...

Commander

William Shepherd William McMichael "Bill" Shepherd (born July 26, 1949), ( Capt, USN, Ret.), is an American former Navy SEAL, aerospace, ocean, and mechanical engineer, and NASA astronaut, who served as Commander of Expedition 1, the first crew on the Interna ...

, Pilot

Yuri Gidzenko Yuri Pavlovich Gidzenko (russian: link=no, Юрий Павлович Гидзенко; born March 26, 1962) is a Russian cosmonaut. He was a test cosmonaut of the Yuri Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center (TsPK). Gidzenko has flown into space thre ...

and Flight Engineer

Sergei Krikalev Sergei Konstantinovich Krikalev (russian: Сергей Константинович Крикалёв, also transliterated as Sergei Krikalyov; born 27 August 1958) is a Russian mechanical engineer, former cosmonaut and former head of the Yuri Ga ...

– entered the

for the first time and retrieved the items left for them. At 09:36 EST on 8 December 2000, the crew paid the first visit to the Expedition 1 crew residing in the space station. Until then the shuttle and the station had kept one hatch closed to maintain respective atmospheric pressures, allowing the shuttle crew to conduct their spacewalks and mission goals. After a welcome ceremony and briefing, the eight spacefarers conducted structural tests of the station and its solar arrays, transferred equipment, supplies and refuse back and forth between the spacecraft, and checked out the television camera cable installed by Tanner and Noriega for the upcoming mission. On 9 December 2000, the two crews completed final transfers of supplies to the station and other items being returned to Earth. The ''Endeavour'' crew bade farewell to the Expedition 1 crew at 10:51 EST and closed the hatches between the spacecraft. After being docked together for 6 days, 23 hours and 13 minutes, ''Endeavour'' undocked from the station at 14:13 EST. Piloted by Michael Bloomfield, it then made an hour-long, tail-first circle of the station. The undocking took place 235 statute miles above the border of

and China. The final separation burn took place near the northeast coast of South America. STS-97 was the 15th flight of ''Endeavour'' and the 101st Space Shuttle mission.

Wake-up calls

NASA began a tradition of playing music to astronauts during the Gemini program, which was first used to wake up a flight crew during Apollo 15. Each track is specially chosen, often by their families, and usually has a special meaning to an individual member of the crew, or is applicable to their daily activities.

Images

Image:STS-97 Tanner EVA 3.jpg, Tanner on the final spacewalk of the mission on 7 December 2000. Part of the new solar arrays can be seen on the left. File:P6install.jpg, Illustration of the International Space Station after STS-97

References

External links

NASA mission summary

{{DEFAULTSORT:Sts-97 Spacecraft launched in 2000 2000 in the United States STS-097 2000 in Florida