STS-70 Day 1 Highlights

On Thursday, July 13, 1995, 5 p.m. CDT, STS-70 MCC Status Report # 01 reports:

After a flawless launch this morning, the crew of Discovery accomplished the main objective of their flight this afternoon with the trouble-free deploy of a NASA communications satellite.

Following an 8:42 a.m. launch, the Tracking and Data Relay Satellite-G, the sixth and last such satellite to be deployed from a space shuttle, was ejected from Discovery's cargo bay exactly on time at 2:55 p.m. Central. The release of the satellite was overseen by Mission Specialists Don Thomas and Mary Ellen Weber. About 15 minutes later, Discovery's Commander Tom Henricks fired the shuttle's engines to raise the orbit and move away from the vicinity of the satellite and its Inertial Upper Stage booster. At about 3:55 p.m., the satellite's IUS booster fired the first of two burns that will put TDRS-G into its proper, 22,000-mile-high geostationary orbit above the central Pacific Ocean.

In Mission Control, operations are in the process of being moved to a new facility. Following the satellite deploy, flight controllers are planning to vacate the current room which has been used for three decades, since Gemini 4 in 1965, to control human space flights. Beginning at about 6:30 p.m. Central, the overnight shift of flight controllers will be the first to operate from the New Mission Control Center, and all further orbit operations for STS-70 and future flights will be performed from the new control center.

Go to STS-70 Flight Day 2 Highlights: