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Aviation History
1998
1998 - 2980.PDF
SPACEFLIGHT Space shuffle The NASA Space Shuttle fleet faces an uncertain 1999 TIM FURNISS/LONDON JOHN GLENN HAS made it in the nick of time. The STS95/Discwery mission due to launch the 77-year-old former astronaut into orbit on 29 October, it turns out, is his last realistic chance to return to space (Flight International, 2 5-31 March). The fifth Shuttle launch this year, STS88, is scheduled for 3 December, will kick off NASAs launches for the International Space Station (ISS), but could be delayed. Just five specialist Shuttle missions have been scheduled for 1999, as NASA wrestles with various difficulties. Glenn would not have got a look-in next year. Technical problems have pushed back the launch of the Advanced X-Ray Astrophysics Facility by at least two months from January 1999. Furthermore, because Russia is going to be late delivering its ISS Service Module in 1999, the Space Station assembly schedule has been shuffled yet again (see box). It is likely that the STS88 mission will be delayed to 1999. The first operations crew will not board die ISS until January 2000 at the earliest, and it is Friendship 7 astronaut John Glenn is preparing to return to space after 36years' absence unlikely that the Space Station will be complet ed before 2004, 10 years later than planned when the project was initiated in 1984 by then US President Ronald Reagan. Another flight, the Shuttle Radar Topo graphy Mission, is also due in 1999, but as it is manifested for orbiter Atlantis, which is one of the vehicles assigned to ISS flights, it may also be delayed to fit in with assembly requirements. All this uncertainty over further Shuttle mis sions will be pushed into the background as Glenn, the first US national to orbit the earth, aboard Mercury capsule Friendship 7 in 1962, prepares to spend nine days in space studying the effects of microgravity on the ageing process. Glenn will become the oldest person in space, the previous oldest being Story Mus- grave, who was then a mere stripling of 61. The STS95 crew also has six other members, including two former medical surgeons and the first Spanish astronaut, Pedro Duque of the European Space Agency. Glenn's research is jointly sponsored by NASA and the National Institute on Ageing. The planned investigations focus on bone and muscle loss, and balance and sleep disorders, conditions experienced both by astronauts in die near-weightless conditions of space and by die elderly on earth. The payloads for mission STS95 include a single Spacehab mid-deck augmentation mod ule packed with international experiments; the Spartan 201-5 deployable solar science satellite; the Hubble Orbital Systems Test (HOST); the International Extreme Ultraviolet Hitchhiker- 3 package of astronomical instruments and numerous secondary experiments. The S10 million Spartan observatory is being flown on STS95 to collect die solar data missed during its last mission in November. During that flight, the spacecraft did not activate after being released from the Shuttle's robot arm because the pre-release procedures overlooked a vital step. A Petite .Amateur Navy Satellite will also be deployed from the Discovery to transmit digital communications to specific ground stations. The HOST experiment is intended to pro vide Hubble officials with the opportunity to test hardware that may be installed on the orbit ing telescope during a planned servicing mis sion in May 2000. ' • Date Flight Country Vehicle EJement(s) Crew 20 November 1A/R Russia Proton Zarya control module Unmanned (Functional Cargo Block) 3 December 2A USA Endeavour Unity node (one stowage rack) STS88 Unity to be Two pressurised mating adaptors attached to Zarya (PMA) Cdr: Cabana, Pit: Sturckow MS: Currie, Krikalev (Russia) MS/EVA: Ross, MS/EVA: Newman May 1999 2A.1 USA Discovery STS96 Spacehab double cargo module Logistics mission and equipment Cdr: Rominger, Pit: Husband, MS/EVA: Jernigan, MS/EVA: Barry MS: Ochoa, Payette, Malenchenko (Russia) July August August October Oct ober 1R IP 2A.2 2P 3A Russia Russia USA Russia USA Proton Progress M1 Soyuz Space Shuttle Endeavour Progress Ml Soyuz Atlantis STS92 December 4A USA Endeavour STS97 tbd: to be decided. MS: mission specialist. F.VA: spacewalk STS Service module Unmanned supply tanker Spacehab double cargo module Logistics mission Unmanned supply tanker Integrated truss structure Zl PMA-3 Ku-band communications system Control moment gyros ITSP6 Photovoltaic Module Radiators Unmanned Unmanned tbd Unmanned Cdr: Duffy, Pit: Melroy, MS/RMS': Wakata, MS/EVA: Wisoff, MS/EVA: Chiao, MS/EVA: McArthur, MS/EVA: Lopez-Algeria. Cdr: Jett, Pit: Bloomfield MS/EVA: Tanner, MS/EVA: Noregia MS: Garneau 44 FLIGHT INTERNATIONAL 28 October - 3 November 1998
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