STS-96 Day 1 Highlights
Return to STS-96 Mission Summary
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- On Thursday, May 27, 1999, 8:00 a.m. EDT, STS-96 MCC Status Report # 01
reports:
- Discovery and its multi-national crew of seven astronauts blasted
off this morning from the Kennedy Space Center. lighting up the early
morning skies as they sped to orbit on the first shuttle mission of
the year for the first shuttle docking to the International Space
Station.
- Commander Kent Rominger, Pilot Rick Husband and Mission Specialists
Tammy Jernigan, Ellen Ochoa, Dan Barry, Julie Payette and Valery
Tokarev lifted off at 5:50 a.m. Central time following a flawless
countdown. Less than nine minutes later, they reached orbit to begin
their pursuit of the station.
- At the time of launch, the ISS's two modules, Zarya and Unity, were
traveling due east of the outer banks of the Carolinas northwest of
Bermuda at an altitude of about 210 nautical miles. Discovery will
catch up to the ISS late tomorrow night for the first docking of a
Shuttle to the new orbital outpost. That will mark the start of six
days of docked activities in which the astronauts plan to transfer
almost two tons of supplies to the station and conduct a spacewalk to
continue outfitting the fledgling facility.
- Once on orbit, the astronauts began to activate shuttle systems and
conducted early work in advance of their rendezvous with the ISS,
which will begin early Friday evening. Having launched late in their
workday, the astronauts are scheduled to begin an eight hour sleep
period at 10:50 a.m. Central time. They will be awakened this evening
about 6:50 p.m. Central time for the start of their second day in
space - a day which will be highlighted by ongoing preparations for
both the docking of Discovery to the station Friday night and the
scheduled spacewalk by Jernigan and Barry late Saturday night.
- Discovery is orbiting at altitude of about 170 nautical miles, with
all of its systems functioning in good shape.
- The next STS-96 mission status report will be issued about 8
p.m. Central time, or as events warrant.
- On Thursday, May 27, 1999, 8:00 p.m. EDT, STS-96 MCC Status Report # 02
reports:
- The crew of STS-96 was awakened just before 7 p.m. by the Beach
Boys' version of "California Dreamin,'" played for Mission
Specialist Tammy Jernigan. Once awake, Discovery's seven-member crew
began preparing for its first full day on orbit to ready the vehicle
for tomorrow night's docking with the International Space Station and
a spacewalk the night after.
- Commander Kent Rominger, Pilot Rick Husband and Mission Specialists
Ellen Ochoa, Dan Barry, Julie Payette, Valery Tokarev and Jernigan
will spend much of the day checking out orbiter systems and
spacewalking equipment, while continuing to slowly close in on the
station through a series of calculated rendezvous maneuvers.
- The crew will examine and prepare the tools required to support
rendezvous and docking operations, and later will spend a number of
hours checking and testing the extravehicular mobility units, or space
suits, that will be used during the planned spacewalk Saturday night
into Sunday morning. Both suits are checked far enough ahead of the
spacewalk to ensure good working condition in plenty of time to allow
for any required troubleshooting work by the specialists on the
ground.
- Also tonight and into tomorrow, Canadian astronaut Payette will
assist Ochoa in testing the mechanical arm, checking its operation
while conducting a video survey of the payload bay. This procedure
will make certain the arm is functioning properly to support the
spacewalk. Just before the pre-sleep period, Tokarev, a Russian
cosmonaut, will move some logistics transfer items stored on the
shuttle's middeck, into the SPACEHAB module to provide more room for
the spacesuit checkout activities.
- Discovery currently is orbiting at an altitude of about 200 nautical
miles. At about 7 o'clock this evening, Central time, the shuttle was
775 nautical miles behind the station, closing in at a rate of about
60 nautical miles every 90 minutes.
- The only problem of any significance on the orbiter is the apparent
failure of one of the four corner cameras in Discovery's payload bay.
This poses no problem with the flight as there are various other
cameras available to document activities related to docking, the
spacewalk and deploy later in the flight of STARSHINE.
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