STS-36

Flight Crew

CREIGHTON, John Oliver, 45, USN, commander, 2nd mission Previous mission: STS 51-G (1985)

CASPER, John Howard, 46, USAF, pilot

MULLANE, Richard Michael, 45, USAF, mission specialist 1, 3rd mission Previous missions: STS 41-D (1984); STS-27 (1988)

HILMERS, David Carl, 40, USMC, mission specialist 2, 3rd mission Previous missions: STS 51-J (1985); STS-26 (1988)

THUOT, Pierre Joseph, 34, civilian, mission specialist 3

Flight Log

This DoD classified military mission by the orbiter Atlantis was always going to be a quiet affair, other than the usual comical revelation of exactly what the classified payload was going to be. In this case, it was a digital imaging and electronic signals intelligence satellite, which was to be deployed on the Shuttle’s eighteenth orbit, comparatively late in the proposed four-day mission, by a new system called the Stabilised Payload Deployment System, SPDS. This was fixed to the payload in the payload bay before launch and was to be used to rotate the satellite clear of the Shuttle before release by spring-loaded pistons.

Another innovation for the mission was its high inclination of 62°, ostensibly 5° over the safety limits for launches from the Kennedy Space Center, but on a trajectory which would not quite take it over land. As if to veil this fact as much as possible, Atlantis was first scheduled for a night launch on 16 February, which was eventually moved to 22 February, at 01: 00hrs local time. Before the crew could board the Shuttle, however, the weather caused concern and for the first time since Apollo 9, a US mission was delayed by the illness of the crew. In this case, it was commander John Creighton, who was suffering from an upper respiratory tract infection.

His illness delayed the launch until 25 February and the count reached T — 31 seconds when a range safety computer went on the blink. By the time it had been fixed, the liquid oxygen was too cold for the SSMEs. The launch was cancelled the following day due to winds at altitude and a low cloud deck and was routinely postponed for 48 hours. On 28 February, the weather looked to win again, but with just seconds of the launch window remaining, Atlantis lit up the night sky at 02: 50 hrs local time, heading for its unique launch azimuth. Deployment of the classified satellite took place as planned and the mission ended quietly with a landing at Edwards Air Force Base at T + 4 days 10 hours 18 minutes 22 seconds.

It was revealed later that the satellite had apparently broken apart in orbit and two of the six resulting fragments had re-entered soon after. The satellite may have failed to fire its rocket stage to reach operational orbit. All in all, it seems that STS-36 was an expensive waste of a mission.

Milestones

132nd manned space flight 64th US manned space flight 34th Shuttle flight 6th flight of Atlantis