STS-70 Day 8 Highlights

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On Thursday, July 20, 1995, 7 a.m. CDT, STS-70 MCC Status Report # 14 reports:

The crew of Discovery overnight wrapped up its experiment work and checked out the systems that will be used for landing at Kennedy Space Center Friday.

Discovery's orbital maneuvering system engines are currently scheduled to be fired for the deorbit burn at 5:54 a.m. CDT Friday, resulting in a touchdown in Florida at 6:54 a.m. CDT. The weather forecast was favorable enough for mission managers to decide not to call up landing support at Edwards Air Force Base in California and to press for landing in Florida on either Friday or Saturday.

The second half of the crew's last full day on orbit will be spent packing up the experiments and stowing gear in preparation for landing. Earlier, Mission Specialists Don Thomas, Nancy Currie and Mary Ellen Weber completed the final data takes on the middeck experiments, and Commander Tom Henricks and Pilot Kevin Kregel successfully checked out the flight control surfaces and hot-fired the reaction control system steering jets they will use to pilot Discovery to a safe touchdown.

Flight controllers are once again working out of the old Mission Control Center following an orderly midnight transition from the new control center so that it can be used for a simulation. Launches and landings are scheduled to be controlled out of the old MCC for the next several flights until the new facility can be certified for the most dynamic flight phases.

On Thursday, July 20, 1995, 5 p.m. CDT, STS-70 MCC Status Report # 15 reports

With their experiments stowed and the orbiter prepared for landing, Discovery's five crew members are ready to come home Friday and conclude their successful eight-day mission.

The STS-70 crew has two opportunities to land at the Kennedy Space Center on Friday. For the first opportunity, Discovery's orbital maneuvering system engines would be fired for the deorbit burn at 5:53 a.m. CDT, resulting in a touchdown in Florida at 6:54 a.m. CDT. The deorbit burn for the second opportunity would occur at 7:28 a.m. CDT, with landing at 8:31 a.m. CDT. The weather predictions do look favorable, but forecasters will be watching for the formation of scattered cloud layers and ground fog that could hinder landing operations.

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