Category Praxis Manned Spaceflight Log 1961-2006

Flight Crew

NAGEL, Steven Ray, 44, USAF, commander, 3rd mission Previous missions: STS 51-G (1985); STS 61-A (1985) CAMERON, Kenneth Donald, 41, USMC, pilot GODWIN, Linda Maxine, 38, civilian, mission specialist 1 ROSS, Jerry Lynn, 43, USAF, mission specialist 2, 3rd mission Previous missions: STS 61-B (1985); STS-27 (1988)

APT, Jerome “Jay”, 41, civilian, mission specialist 3

Flight Log

Atlantis left the pad almost on time with low-level clouds causing the only delay, of four minutes. Atlantis now carried newly upgraded general purpose computers. The primary payload, the Gamma Ray Observatory, was deployed during FD 3 (7 April), but its high-gain antenna failed to deploy on command. Ross (EV1) and Apt (EV2) performed an unscheduled EVA, the first since April 1985 (STS 51-D) to manually deploy the antenna, permitting the observatory to be successfully released into orbit. The two EVA astronauts had been preparing to exit the Shuttle in the event of something going wrong with the deployment, and as the GRO was lifted out of the payload bay by the RMS, they were checking out their suits. The solar panels of the GRO were opened to their full span of 21 m, although the high-gain antenna it unlatched did not deploy its 5-metre boom. As the procedures for the contingency EVA were faxed up to the crew, Ross and Apt donned their suits and prepared to exit the vehicle. Meanwhile, the crew fired the thrusters on the Shuttle to try to shake the boom loose, but without success. During the 4 hour 26 minute EVA, Ross tried to push the boom free. When that did not work, they set up a work platform to proceed with the manual deployment sequence they had practised four times in the Weightless

Environment Training Facility, or WETF, during training. Finding adequate hand holds was a problem, especially during the night time pass of the orbit. While Apt checked to ensure they were not damaging the boom, Ross removed a locking pin and pulled the antenna boom to its deployment position, then used a wrench to lock it into position. While they were outside, they also took the opportunity to perform some of the planned EVA Development Flight Experiment activities by evaluating hand rails, measuring the forces imparted on the foot restraints during the performance of simple tasks, and performing translation exercises. When the GRO was ready for deployment they returned to the airlock, but did not re-pressurise it in case they were needed again. They watched the deployment from the vantage point of the airlock hatch.

The following day (8 April), both men were back outside for the scheduled EVA (5 hours 47 minutes). This time, the two astronauts assembled a 14.6-metre track down the port side of the payload bay and fixed the Crew and Equipment Translation Aid (CETA) cart to it. This was an evaluation of the type of cart that would be installed on the space station to aid movement over long distances, saving the astronauts’ energy. They also evaluated using the RMS out over the aft of the payload bay at varying speeds, using strain gauges to measure the slippage of the arm’s brakes. They found that RMS-based tasks took longer to perform than expected and also they found themselves suffering from the cold due to excessive EMU cooling, giving rise to concerns that the same might occur during space station construction EVAs, especially on the night-side passes. New EVA gloves that were tested proved disappointing, despite excellent results obtained on Earth. The crew also recom­mended that back-to-back EVAs should be avoided due to crew fatigue. During the post-flight debriefing, Apt reported that the right-hand index finger of his EVA glove had sustained an abrasion and inspections revealed that the palm bar had penetrated the glove bladder by about 1 cm. Had the palm bar come out of the glove again during EVA, it was estimated that the leakage rate would not have been sufficient to activate the secondary oxygen pack, but it was clear that more work was needed on the glove design before the more arduous EVAs planned for the space station.

With the GRO deployed and two EVAs accomplished, the crew worked on their mid-deck experiments, including testing components of the Space Station Heat Pipe Advanced Radiator Element, to better understand the fluid transfer process at work in microgravity. They also processed chemicals with the BioServa apparatus, operated the Protein Crystal Growth apparatus, and made contact with several hundred amateur radio operators across the world. Due to unacceptable winds at the primary site at Edwards in California, and bad weather at the Cape, the homecoming of Atlantis was delayed by a day from 10 April, with the crew taking the opportunity to photograph the Earth.

The Gamma Ray Observatory included four instruments that observed the electromagnetic spectrum from 30keV to 30GeV. Subsequently renamed after Dr. Arthur Folly Compton, who won the Nobel Prize in physics for his work on the scattering of high-energy photons by electrons, the observatory initially worked well, but after six months problems developed in the onboard tape recorders, with high error rates in the data. This forced NASA to use the TDRS to relay data to Earth in real time instead of storing it and downloading it later. Despite the reduction in the amount of data returned, this problem did not prevent the completion of a planned all-sky survey by November 1992. The Compton Observatory’s results have been important, but are less well known than the high-profile images from Hubble. Its studies of solar flares, pulsars, X-ray binary systems, and numerous high-energy emissions have all contributed to a better understanding of gamma ray sources in deep space. The observatory was safely de-orbited and re-entered Earth’s atmosphere on 4 June 2000, nine years after its deployment from Atlantis.

Milestones

139th manned space flight 69th US manned space flight 39th Shuttle mission 8th flight of Atlantis (OV-104)

24th US and 42nd flight with EVA operations Mission completed first decade of STS flight operations 1st US EVA since December 1985

Flight Crew

COATS, Michael Lloyd, 45, USN, commander, 3rd mission Previous missions: STS 41-D (1984), STS-29 (1989)

HAMMOND Jr., Blaine Lloyd, 38, USAF, pilot HARBAUGH, Gregory Jordan, 34, civilian, mission specialist 1 McMONAGLE, Donald Ray, 38, USAF, mission specialist 2 BLUFORD, Guion, 48, USAF, mission specialist 3, 3rd mission Previous missions: STS-8 (1983); STS 61-A (1985)

VEACH, Charles Lacy, 46, civilian, mission specialist 4 HIEB, Richard James, 35, civilian, mission specialist 5

Flight Log

The launch of this unclassified DoD mission was originally scheduled for 9 March, but significant cracks were discovered on all four hinges on the two ET umbilical door mechanisms during processing at Pad 39A. The stack was rolled back to the VAB on 7 March and the tank sent to the OPF for repairs. After the stack was returned to the pad on 1 April, the launch attempt scheduled for 23 April was postponed due to problems with a high-pressure oxidiser turbo-pump for SSME # 3 during pre-launch loading. After replacement and testing, launch was rescheduled again, this time to 28 April.

STS-39 was one of the most complicated Shuttle missions to date. The purpose of the mission was to fly an unclassified DoD programme to enhance US national security by gathering scientific data that was essential to the development of advanced missile detection systems. The crew, working a two-shift system (Red Team: Ham­mond, Veach, Heib; Blue Team: Harbaugh, McMongagle, Bluford – Coats working

with either as required), also completed a variety of sophisticated experiments, including the deployment of five separate spacecraft. The Shuttle Pallet Satellite II (SPAS-II) supported both an infrared and an imaging telescope that studied the Earth’s limb, the aurora, the orbiter’s environment, and the stars both during free-flight and while attached to the RMS. Also aboard SPAS-II was the Infrared Background Signature Survey (IBSS), which was used to image and measure the spectral nature of rocket exhaust plumes by observing both firings of Discovery’s RCS from different attitudes, and the ejection of three sub-satellites deployed from can­isters in the payload bay which released chemical gases. Simultaneous observations of these gas releases were made by Earth-based instruments at Vandenberg AFB in California. The other classified deployable payload was designated the Multi-Purpose Release Canister.

Space Test Payload 1 (AFP-675) comprised five instruments designed to observe the atmosphere, aurora and stars in the infrared, far ultraviolet and X-ray wave­lengths. The Cryogenic Infrared Radiance Instrument for Shuttle (CIRRIS) used an infrared detector chilled by super-cold (cryogenic) liquid helium to study airglow and auroral emissions form Earth’s upper atmosphere. The coolant was used faster than anticipated, which made this experiment a priority over SPAS II/IBSS and delayed the latter by 24 hours. Mike Coats reported that passing through the auroral displays was “just like flying through a curtain of light’’. The rescheduled experiment returned

50 per cent more data than planned. STP-1 also included the FAR UV Cameras, the Uniformly Redundant Array, the Horizon UV Program and the Quadruple Ion – Neutral Mass Spectrometer. When two tape recorders failed these instruments were adversely affected, but the crew demonstrated the value of humans in space by performing a complicated bypass repair, rerouting data via an orbiter antenna and via TDRS to the ground, fulfilling the objectives for these experiments.

The crew also took advantage of their orbital inclination to take colour and infrared pictures of important surface features and phenomena on Earth, including Lake Baikal in Russia, oil field fires in Kuwait, and the results of a devastating typhoon in the Indian Ocean and fires in Central America, whose smoke palls had drifted over Texas and as far east as Florida. The crew landed at the SLF in Florida due to unacceptably high winds at Edwards AFB.

Milestones

140th manned space flight

70th US manned space flight

40th Shuttle mission

12th mission of OV-103 Discovery

8th DoD Shuttle mission

1st unclassified DoD Shuttle mission

1st flight crew to comprise 7 NASA astronauts

Flight Crew

WALKER, David Mathiesan, USN, commander, 3rd mission Previous missions: STS 51-A (1984); STS-30 (1989)

CABANA, Robert Donald, USMC, pilot, 2nd mission Previous mission: STS-41 (1990)

BLUFORD Jr., Guion Stewart, USAF, mission specialist 1, 4th mission Previous missions: STS-8 (1983); STS 61-A (1985); STS-39 (1991)

VOSS, James Shelton, US Army, mission specialist 2, 2nd mission Previous mission: STS-44 (1991)

CLIFFORD, Michael Richard Uram, US Army, mission specialist 3

Flight Log

STS-53 was Discovery’s 15th mission, its first since STS-42 the previous year. During the intervening 23 months, 78 major modifications had been made to the orbiter while still at KSC. These included the addition of a drag parachute for landing and the capability of redundant nose wheel steering. The launch was delayed by one hour 25 minutes to allow the sunlight to melt ice on the ET that had accumulated thanks to overnight temperatures of —4°C.

The initial activity after reaching orbit was the deployment of a military satellite on FD 1. The satellite remains classified, although the payload was later identified as the third Advanced Satellite Data Systems Intelligence Relay Satellite. Once that deployment had been completed, the remainder of the mission became declassified. The crew continued with their experiment programme of two cargo bay and nine mid­deck experiments, most of which were instigated by the Defense Department Space Test Program Office, headquartered at Los Angeles AFB in California.

The experiment payload on Discovery included the Shuttle Glow Experiment/ Cryogenic Heat Pipe Experiment, which measured and recorded electrically charged

particles as they struck the tail of the orbiter. The second part of this experiment provided research into the use of super-cold LO pipelines for spacecraft cooling. Also in the payload bay was the NASA Orbital Debris Radar Calibration Spheres (ODERACS) experiment, designed to improve the accuracy of ground-based radars in detection, identification and tracking of orbital space debris. In the mid-deck, the Microcapsule in Space and Space Tissue Loss experiments were devoted to medical research, while the Vision Function Test measured the changes in astronauts’ vision that might occur in the microgravity environment. The Cosmic Radiation Effects and Activation Monitor (CREAM) recorded levels of radiation inside the mid-deck, as did the Radiation Monitoring Experiment. There was a joint USN, US Army and NASA experiment for the crew to locate 25 preselected ground sites with a one nautical mile accuracy. This was an evaluation of detecting laser beams from space and the use of such beams in ground-to-spacecraft communications. Other experiments included a photographic assessment of cloud fields for DoD systems, while the Fluid Acquisition and Resupply Experiment studied the motion of liquids in microgravity during simulated refuelling of propellant tanks with distilled water. There were also seven medical tests, including a re-flight of the rowing machine rather than the treadmill for physical exercise.

This crew dubbed themselves “the Dogs of War Crew’’, as they represented all four branches of the US armed forces. Their training team had been called “Bad Dog’’

and these combined to have the STS-53 crew become known as the “Dog Crew” (and they often quipped that they were “working like dogs” throughout their mission). Walker was known as “Red Dog”, Cabana was known as “Mighty Dog” and Clifford, being the rookie, was known as “Puppy Dog”. Bluford became “Dog Gone” and Voss became “Dog Face”. The crew mascot was known as “Duty Dog” and a stowaway that looked over the crew during the mission (a rubber dog mask hung over an orange launch and entry suit) was known as “Dog Breath”.

The landing was originally scheduled for KSC but was diverted to Edwards due to clouds in the vicinity of the SLF. Following the landing, a small leak was detected in the forward thrusters, delaying the egress of the crew until fans and winds dissipated the leaking gas.

Milestones

156th manned space flight

82nd US manned space flight

52nd Shuttle mission

15th flight of Discovery

10th and final dedicated DoD Shuttle mission

Flight Crew

VIKTORENKO, Alexandr Stepanovich, 47, Russian Air Force, commander, 4th mission

Previous missions: Soyuz TM3 (1987); Soyuz TM8 (1989); Soyuz TM14 (1992) KONDAKOVA, Yelena Vladimirovna, 37, civilian, flight engineer MERBOLD, Ulf Dietrich, 53, civilian, ESA research engineer, 3rd mission Previous missions: STS-9 (1983); STS-42 (1992)

Flight Log

As Soyuz TM20 approached Mir’s docking port on automatic, it yawed to the side, forcing Viktorenko to take manual control to complete the docking without further incident. Aboard the Soyuz was Shuttle veteran and ESA astronaut Ulf Merbold, who would be staying aboard the station for a month to operate the EuroMir94 experiment programme. Hastily assembled (and underfunded by ESA), the experi­ment programme was heavily dependent upon equipment left aboard Mir during earlier international visits by Austrian, French and German cosmonauts, and on the facilities of the station itself. The experiment programme featured 30 experiments: 23 in life sciences, 4 in materials sciences and 3 in technology. Merbold’s mission was a precursor to the planned 135-day EuroMir95 mission scheduled for the following year, and for operations on the ESA Columbus module that was planned for ISS. A fault on the Kristallisator furnace prevented Merbold from performing his materials experiments. The replacement would not arrive at the station until after Merbold had returned to Earth.

With six cosmonauts on Mir for a month, the drain on resources was beginning to tell. On 1 October, during the recharging of Soyuz TM20’s batteries, TV equipment could not be recharged at the same time. A short circuit on the computer that oriented

the solar arrays to face the Sun meant that the station was unable to replenish its power and the batteries had drained. This necessitated the use of reaction control propellant on the Soyuz TM in order to realign the station, point the arrays at the Sun and restore power via a back-up computer. These interruptions affected Merbold’s science programme, which had to be adjusted around the periods of lost power. On 3 November, the EO-16 crew and Merbold boarded Soyuz TM19 to test the Kurs docking system. TM19 undocked and backed away from the station to 190 metres, then successfully re-docked automatically and the crew re-entered the station for 24 hours. Had the docking failed then the crew would have completed an emergency return to Earth. In the event, a nominal landing was achieved the following day. Merbold returned with 16 kg of life science samples he had collected during his month on the station. The collection included 125 saliva, 85 urine and 34 blood samples.

When Progress M25 arrived on 13 November, it delivered spares for the furnace, which allowed the experiments planned for Merbold’s visit to be completed.

By 18 November, the Mir base block had completed 50,000 orbits of Earth since its launch in February 1986. For a while, it looked as though Viktorenko and Polyakov would have to perform EVAs in late November, to move the Kristall arrays in preparation for the arrival of the Spektr module in December. However, that launch soon slipped (in part due to the Americans’ late shipping of equipment and Russian customs bureaucracy) and the EVAs were cancelled.

On 9 January 1995, Polyakov set a new single-mission endurance record of one year and one day, and with over 600 days to his credit from two missions, he was already by far the most experienced space traveller with another three months to go in the flight. Given the uncertainties over the safety of flying such a long mission, and his potential exposure to ambient radiation, Polyakov slept in the Kristall module shielded by the batteries, in order to avoid putting his colleagues at any undue risk. Viktorenko and Kondakova occupied the two individual cabins in the base block. On 11 January, in order to review repairs to the Kurs system, the cosmonauts conducted another test, undocking TM20 and pulling back 160 meters before completing a successful automatic re-docking. A month later, a new spacecraft arrived at Mir, but this one would not be docking. One of the objectives of US Shuttle Discovery’s STS-63 mission was to test launch and rendezvous windows for the later docking missions. For a few hours on 6 February, Discovery flew in close proximity to Mir, approaching to approximately 10 meters in a simulated docking approach. This was the closest that a manned Russian and American spacecraft had been to each other in space since ASTP in July 1975. After a photographic fly-around exercise, Discovery departed to continue its own mission, leaving Mir’s cosmonauts to resume prepara­tions for their return to Earth.

After Norman Thagard arrived with the next resident crew on Soyuz TM21 on 16 March 1995 and the period of hand-over operations were completed, the EO-17 crew of Viktorenko and Kondakova returned to Earth on 22 March, along with Polyakov. The latter had set a single-mission record of 438 days, which is unlikely to be surpassed for decades. Indeed, there are no plans to try to surpass it for the foreseeable future. Despite such a long flight, the doctor-cosmonaut insisted in walking unaided to the medical tent once he was helped from the Descent Module. Polyakov had performed over 1,000 tests in a programme of 50 medical experiments, losing 15 per cent of his bone density. This took a few months to regain, and even then the recovery was not total. This was despite a strict regime of two hours exercise per day which he observed strictly every day in space. The loss of oxygen-bearing red blood cells in the early weeks of his flight was countered by adjusting Mir’s environ­mental control system, but the soles of his feet had softened as he had not “walked” for several months. He had proved that a flight of 14 months was possible (a duration which could support a manned round trip mission to Mars), but at a cost. Polyakov’s bravery and determination to complete both the exercise programme and the flight stand out as one of the milestones in manned space flight history, one whose legacy will only really be seen when the first crews are dispatched towards Mars.

Milestones

174th manned space flight 79th Russian manned space flight 20th Manned Mir mission 17th Mir resident crew 72nd manned Soyuz flight 19th manned Soyuz TM flight

1st female cosmonaut assigned to a long-duration mission Longest single space flight by a female (Kondakova)

Polyakov sets a new world record for one flight of 437 days 17hrs and a career record in two space flights of 678 days 16hrs

Flight Crew

McMONAGLE, Donald Ray, 42, USAF, commander, 3rd mission Previous missions: STS-39 (1991); STS-54 (1993)

BROWN Jr., Curtis Lee, 38, USAF, pilot, 2nd mission Previous mission: STS-47 (1992)

OCHOA, Ellen Lauri, 36, civilian, mission specialist 1, payload commander, 2nd mission

Previous mission: MS STS-56 (1993)

TANNER, Joseph Richard, 44, civilian, mission specialist 2 CLERVOY, Jean-Francois Andre, 35, civilian, ESA mission specialist 3 PARAZYNSKI, Scott Edward, 33, civilian, mission specialist 4

Flight Log

This was the third flight of the same seven-instrument ATLAS payload that had previously flown on STS-45 in 1992 and STS-56 in 1993, making this one of the most comprehensive efforts to gather data about the energy output of our Sun and the chemical make-up of Earth’s atmosphere. The six astronauts would operate a two – shift system. McMonagle would lead the Red Shift, with Ochoa and Tanner, while Brown, Clervoy and Parazynski worked the Blue Shift.

The only slight delay to the launch of STS-66 was caused by weather conditions at the transoceanic abort sites. Atlantis was on its first mission since returning from the Rockwell Palmdale facility, where it had received new nose wheel steering capability, improved internal plumbing and electrical connections that would allow the EDO pallet kit to be fitted when required. Additional electrical wiring was also installed in preparation for fitting the Orbiter Docking System for the first Shuttle-Mir docking missions, which Atlantis was manifested to fly in the summer of 1995.

ATLAS-3’s Atmospheric Trace Molecule Spectrometer (ATMOS) collected more data on trace gases in our atmosphere on this flight than on its previous flights

combined. The Shuttle Backscatter UV Spectrometer recorded ozone measurements which were used to calibrate the ozone monitor on the ageing NOAA-9 satellite. The Active Cavity Radiometer Irradiance Monitor (ACRIM) that obtained precise measurements of the Sun’s total radiation for 30 orbits (about 1,350 minutes) was also used to calibrate another spacecraft, the UARS satellite. Other instruments recorded measurements of the Sun in the various radiation categories. Before a malfunction shut down the Millimeter Wave Atmospheric Sounder (MAS), it collected nine hours of data on water vapour, chlorine, carbon monoxide and ozone in Earth’s atmosphere at altitudes of 20-100 km.

The Cryogenic Infrared Spectrometers and Telescopes for the Atmosphere – Shuttle Pallet Satellite (CRISTA-SPAS) was a second primary payload and was classed as a joined mission with ATLAS-3 with a single set of scientific objectives. Released by RMS on FD 2, it flew behind Atlantis at a distance of about 40-70 km, collecting data for over eight days on the medium – and small-scale distribution of trace gases in the middle atmosphere. The instruments on CRISTA-SPAS also re­corded the amounts of hydroxyl and nitric acid that destroy the ozone in the middle atmosphere and lower thermosphere from 40 to 120 km. This represented the first complete global mapping of hydroxyl in our atmosphere, and helped to define a more detailed model and understanding of how energy is balanced throughout the layers.

When the satellite was retrieved and stowed in the payload bay prior to entry, the astronauts adopted the R-Bar rendezvous approach, which was the same as the one that would be used in the upcoming Shuttle-Mir missions, saving propellant and reducing the risk of contamination from thrusters’ jets. For this approach, the active spacecraft (in this case, Atlantis) approaches its passive target (CRISTA-SPAS) by flying along an imaginary line (bar) aligned with the radius (R) of the Earth. Approaching from “above” is called a “negative R-Bar’’ but the approach from below (used on STS-66 and for Shuttle-Mir), known as “positive R-Bar’’, depends upon the differential gravity from vertical separation to act as a brake and slow down the rate of closure. At the end of the STS-66 mission, Atlantis was diverted to a landing at Edwards because of high winds, rain and cloud cover at the Cape caused by tropical storm Gordon.

Milestones

175th manned space flight

96th US manned space flight

66th Shuttle mission

13th flight of OV-1094 Atlantis

3rd and final flight of ATLAS payload

Flight Crew

PRECOURT, Charles Joseph, 41, USAF, commander, 3rd mission Previous missions: STS-55 (1993); STS-71 (1995)

COLLINS, Eileen Marie, 40, USAF, 2nd mission Previous mission: STS-63 (1995)

CLERVOY, Jean-Francois Andre, 38, civilian, mission specialist 1, 2nd mission Previous mission: STS-66 (1994)

NORIEGA, Carlos Ismael, 37, USMC, mission specialist 2 LU, Edward Tsang, 33, civilian, mission specialist 3

KONDAKOVA, Yelena Vladimirovna, 40, civilian, Russian mission specialist 4, 2nd mission

Previous mission: Soyuz TM20 (1994)

NASA 5 Mir resident crewmember up only:

FOALE, Colin Michael, 40, civilian, mission specialist 5, Mir EO-24 cosmonaut researcher, NASA board engineer 5, 4th mission Previous missions: STS-45 (1992); STS-56 (1993); STS-63 (1995)

NASA 4 Mir resident crewmember down only:

LINENGER, Jerry Michael, 41, USN, mission specialist 5, Mir EO-23 cosmonaut researcher, NASA board engineer 4, 2nd mission Previous mission: STS-64 (1994)

Flight Log

Atlantis docked with Mir on 16 May, bringing the next American Mir resident crew member (Mike Foale) to begin his residency. The formal hand-over between Foale

and Linenger occurred the following day. Linenger had spent 123 days on board the station and by the end of his mission, he had become the second most experienced American astronaut, behind Shannon Lucid. During his stay on board the station, Linenger sent regular emails to his family that were posted on the NASA website and later became the focus of the book Letters from Mir. He also wrote of his experiences in the book Off the Planet.

During the docked phase of the STS-84 mission, the crew transferred approxi­mately 3,400 kg of logistics and supplies to the station, of which about 450 kg was water. During his stay on Mir, Foale had a research programme of 36 investigations (33 on Mir, two on STS-84 and another which included pre- and post-flight par­ticipation). These were shared among six disciplines: advanced technology, Earth observations and remote sensing, fundamental biology, human life sciences, space station risk mitigation, and microgravity sciences. Of these experiments, 28 had been performed during earlier missions, and would be continued, repeated or completed by Foale. Seven new experiments were concerned with materials processing, biology, and crystal growth studies. While Atlantis was still docked to Mir, the crew utilised the Biorack facility located in the SpaceHab double module. In addition, they took environmental air samples, continued to monitor radiation levels and photo – documented the exterior of the station through the windows.

On 21 May, Atlantis undocked from Mir with Jerry Linenger on board. There was no fly-around of Mir on this flight, but the orbiter was halted three times as it backed away from the station, allowing a European sensing device to be evaluated. The data would help in the design of rendezvous systems for the proposed Automated Transfer Vehicle (ATV), the unmanned re-supply craft being developed by ESA for the ISS programme. The first landing opportunity for STS-84 on 24 May was waived off due to low clouds around the SLF, but the weather cleared sufficiently to allow a landing on the second opportunity.

Milestones

198th manned space flight

114th US manned space flight

84th Shuttle mission

19th flight of Atlantis

6th Shuttle-Mir docking

8th SpaceHab mission (3rd double module)