STS-89 Day 10 Highlights

Back to STS-89 Flight Day 09 Highlights:

On Saturday, January 31, 1998, 6:00 a.m. CST, STS-89 MCC Status Report # 18 reports:

The Space Shuttle Endeavour is on course for a 4:35 p.m. CST landing today at the Kennedy Space Center. and Florida weather appears to be cooperating.

STS-89 Commander Terry Wilcutt, Pilot Joe Edwards, Payload Commander Bonnie Dunbar and Mission Specialists Mike Anderson, James Reilly, Salizan Sharipov and Dave Wolf awoke at 5:48 a.m. to the song."Breakfast Blues" by a Houston-area band called Trout Fishing in America, and immediately began final preparations for their return to Earth.

The astronauts will officially move into their deorbit preparations timeline at 11:30 a.m., close the cargo bay doors at about 12:50 p.m., get into their launch and entry suits shortly after 2 p.m. and strap into their seats about 2:30 p.m. Entry Flight Director John Shannon is expected to poll the flight control team for a final."go-no go" decision on the deorbit burn 20 minutes prior to the planned firing of Endeavour's orbital maneuvering system engines at 3:28 p.m.

Forecasters for the Spaceflight Meteorology Group in Houston reported early this morning that the shuttle should land under clear skies today, but failing that will have equally favorable weather Sunday. Mission managers have elected to not call up support at Edwards Air Force Base in California today.

Endeavour is orbiting the Earth every 90 minutes at an altitude of about 240 statute miles with all of its systems working well.

Aboard Mir, Commander Anatoly Solovyev, Flight Engineer Pavel Vinogradov and U.S. Astronaut Andy Thomas are awaiting the arrival of a Soyuz TM-27 spacecraft carrying Mir 25 Commander Talgat Musabayev, Flight Engineer Nikolai Budarin and French researcher Leopold Eyharts. The Soyuz is scheduled to dock with the Russian outpost at 12:13 p.m. CST today. Hatch opening is scheduled for 1:43 p.m. Musabayev and Budarin will replace Solovyev and Vinogradov, who will return to Earth on Feb.19 with Eyharts. Thomas will spend the rest of his four-month research mission with Musabayev and Budarin, who will remain on Mir until August.

The next STS-89 status report will be issued post-landing, or at 6 a.m. CST today.

On Saturday, January 31, 1998, 5:00 p.m. CST, STS-89 MCC Status Report # 19 reports:

The shuttle Endeavour swooped out of a late afternoon sky and glided to a smooth landing at the Kennedy Space Center.to wrap up a nine-day, 3.6 million mile mission to deliver the final U.S. astronaut to the Russian Mir Space Station.

Commander Terry Wilcutt piloted Endeavour to an on-time touchdown on runway 1-5 at the Florida spaceport's 3-mile long landing strip at 4:35 p.m. Central time, less than a half hour before sunset. Aboard Endeavour down on the middeck was astronaut Dave Wolf, who returned to Earth after 128 days in space, 119 of which were served as a crewmember aboard Mir. It was the 13th consecutive shuttle landing at KSC and the 20th in the last 21 missions.

Left behind on the orbiting Russian outpost is astronaut Andy Thomas, who is starting his four-month research mission as the final American to live and work on the 12-year old station. Earlier today, Thomas and his Mir 24 crewmates, Commander Anatoly Solovyev and Flight Engineer Pavel Vinogradov, greeted a new crew of cosmonauts following the successful docking of a Soyuz TM-27 craft with the station. Mir 25 Commander Talgat Musabayev guided the Soyuz to a soft docking with the outpost at 11:55 a.m. Central time following a two-day trip to the Mir since launch from the Baikonur Cosmodrome on Thursday. An hour and a half later, hatches were opened between the Soyuz and the Mir and Musabayev, Flight Engineer Nikolai Budarin and French research Leopold Eyharts were greeted by the resident crewmembers on the Mir.

Musabayev and Budarin will now conduct a three-week handover with Solovyev and Budarin while Eyharts and Thomas press ahead with their scientific experiments. Eyharts will return to Earth February 19 with Solovyev and Vinogradov.

At the Kennedy Space Center. Wilcutt and Wolf, along with their crewmates, Pilot Joe Edwards and Mission Specialists Jim Reilly, Bonnie Dunbar, Mike Anderson and Salizhan Sharipov, were to return to crew quarters where Wolf would begin a series of postflight medical tests at the outset of several weeks of physical rehabilitation following his long stay in weightlessness.

The astronauts are scheduled to spend the night at the Kennedy Space Center before flying back to Houston Sunday afternoon. Crew return at Ellington Field is scheduled for about 5:30 to 6 p.m. Central time Sunday.

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