STS-58

Int. Designation	1993-065A
Launched	18 October 1993
Launch Site	Pad 39B, Kennedy Space Center, Florida
Landed	1 November 1993
Landing Site	Runway 22, Edwards AFB, California
Launch Vehicle	OV-102 Columbia/ET-57/SRB BI-061/SSME #1 2024; #2 2109; #3 2018
Duration	14 days 0hrs 12 min 32 sec
Call sign	Columbia
Objective	Operation of the second dedicated Spacelab Life Sciences payload using the Spacelab Long Module configuration

Flight Crew

BLAHA, John Elmer, 51, USAF, commander. 4th mission Previous missions: STS-29 (1989); STS-33 (1989); STS-43 (1991) SEARFOSS, Richard Alan, 37, USAF, pilot

SEDDON, Margaret Rhea, 45, civilian, mission specialist 1, payload commander, 3rd mission

Previous missions: STS 51-D (1985); STS-40 (1991)

McARTHUR Jr., William Surles, 42, US Army, mission specialist 2 WOLF, David Alexander, 37, civilian, mission specialist 3 LUCID, Shannon Wells, 50, civilian, mission specialist 4, 4th mission Previous missions: STS 51-G (1985); STS-34 (1989); STS-43 (1991) FETTMAN, Martin Joseph, 36, civilian, payload specialist 1

Flight Log

The first attempt at launching STS-58 on 14 October was scrubbed at the T — 31 second mark, as a result of a failed range safety computer. The next attempt on 15 October was scrubbed at T — 9 minutes due to a failed S-band transponder aboard Columbia. The launch on 18 October was also delayed, but only by a few seconds due to an aircraft straying into the launch exclusion zone.

Over the next 14 days, the crew, working a single-shift system, conducted the SLS – 2 research programme and other research objectives, including the Orbiter Accelera­tion Research Experiments, SAREX, and Pilot In-flight Landing Operations Trainer (PILOT), a portable laptop computer simulator that allowed the commander and the pilot to maintain their proficiency for approach and landing on longer missions.

The SLS payload included 14 experiments focusing on four areas: regular physiology, cardiovascular/cardiopulmonary, musculoskeletal and neuro-science ex­periments. The Rotating Dome Experiment was used in conjunction with the first

Rhea Seddon spins the rotating chair as PS Fettman serves as a test subject during the SLS-2 mission

flight prototype of the Astronaut Science Advisor (ASA), a laptop computer program designed to assist the crew member in conducting experiments to increase the efficiency of activities. This was also termed the “principle investigator in a box”. Of the fourteen experiments, eight focused on the astronauts, while the other six were conducted on the 48 rodents aboard. Six of the rodents were killed and dissected during the mission, yielding the first tissue samples collected during a space mission which were not altered by re-exposure to the Earth’s gravity.

During the mission, the crew collected over 650 different samples from the rodents and themselves. This greatly increased the database of life science research and this work continued, at least for the “payload crew’’ (Seddon, Fettman, Lucid and Wolf) after landing. For the first week after the end of the mission, these four astronauts gave regular blood and urine samples to reveal how the body readjusted to gravity after two weeks in space. The blood samples were collected over a period of 45 days after landing. The combined data from SLS-1 and SLS-2 helped to build a more compre­hensive picture of how animals and humans adapted to space flight and readapted to life back on Earth, an important milestone in developing protocols and research programmes for the space station. There were plans to fly a third SLS, which could have become a dedicated French Spacelab mission, but this was not pursued due to budget restrictions, launch manifest constraints and the introduction of the Shuttle- Mir programme, which drew resources away from Spacelab missions.

Milestones

164th manned space flight

88th US manned space flight

58th Shuttle mission

15th flight of Columbia

2nd flight of SLS series

9th Spacelab Long Module mission

Longest Shuttle mission to date

4th longest US spaceflight (after three Skylab missions) 1st veterinarian to fly in space (Fettman)

1st tissue samples collected during a space flight (rodents)

Flight Crew

COVEY, Richard Oswalt, 47, USAF, commander, 4th mission Previous missions: STS 51-I (1985); STS-26 (1988); STS-38 (1990)

BOWERSOX, Kenneth Duane, 37, USN, pilot, 2nd mission Previous mission: STS-50 (1992)

THORNTON, Kathryn Cordell Ryan, 41, civilian, mission specialist 1,

3rd mission

Previous missions: STS-33 (1989); STS-49 (1992)

NICOLLIER, Claude, 49, civilian, mission specialist 2, 2nd mission Previous mission: STS-46 (1992)

HOFFMAN, Jeffery Alan, 49, civilian, mission specialist 3, 4th mission Previous missions: STS 51-D (1985); STS-35 (1990); STS-46 (1992) MUSGRAVE, Franklin Story, 58, civilian, mission specialist 4, payload commander, 5th mission

Previous missions: STS-6 (1983); STS 51-F (1985); STS-33 (1989); STS-44 (1991) AKERS, Thomas Dale, 42, USAF, mission specialist 5, 3rd mission Previous missions: STS-41 (1990); STS-49 (1992)

Flight Log

Described as one of the most challenging manned missions ever attempted, the crew of STS-61 completed a record-breaking five back-to-back EVAs during the first on – orbit service of the Hubble Space Telescope. Many of their tasks were completed sooner than expected, allowing the few contingencies that did occur to be dealt with smoothly. The original launch was to have occurred from Pad 39A at KSC, but following the rollout of the stack to the pad, contamination was discovered in the payload change-out room. As a result, the STS-61 launch was moved to Pad B.

At an altitude of 522 km above the Earth, Musgrave (top) and Hoffman are seen riding on the RMS during the fifth and final EVA of the mission to service the Hubble Telescope, one of the most successful space missions to date. The west coast of Australia forms the backdrop to the scene

The move occurred without incident on 15 November but the first launch attempt on 1 December was scrubbed due to adverse weather conditions at the SLF.

A series of service missions had always been part of the HST programme. At regular intervals, a Shuttle would be sent to repair, replace or upgrade onboard instruments, equipment or systems prolonging the operational life of the facility and improving the quality and quantity of scientific discoveries over the planned fifteen – year life of the telescope. With the focusing difficulties encountered shortly after deployment from STS-31 in 1990, some media reports incorrectly labelled this flight as rescue mission, specially organised to save the telescope. The mission did restore the telescope to full working order, but the corrective optics were incorporated into a far more extensive, and already planned, servicing operation. Rendezvous with Hubble was achieved on FD 3, with the RMS grapple and berthing in the payload bay completed the same day. The telescope was berthed upright in the payload bay of the Shuttle, but remained under the command of the Space Telescope Operations Control Center (STOCC) located at the Goddard Space Flight Center. Following each servicing task, the STOCC controllers verified the interfaces between the new or serviced hardware and the telescope, ensuring at each stage that the telescope would be capable of independent operations once released from the payload bay.

Over a five-day period (4-8 December), the EVA team of four astronauts worked in pairs to complete the complex and demanding programme to restore the telescope to full working order. During the first EVA, four gyros that were situated in pairs in two Rate Sensing Units were replaced, along with two Electronic Control Units that directed the RSUs and eight electrical fuse plugs. The first EVA (7 hours 54 minutes on 4 Dec, conducted by Hoffman (EV1) and Musgrave (EV2)) was the second longest in the US programme to date and the only problem encountered was difficulty in closing the compartment doors after replacing the RSUs. During the next EVA (6 hours 36 minutes on 5 Dec, conducted by Thornton (EV3) and Akers (EV4)), one of the primary objectives of the servicing mission was completed, that of installing new solar arrays. The old arrays were scheduled to be returned to Earth for examination after over three years in space, but one of them refused to fully retract due to a kink in the framework and had to be jettisoned. The other was stowed in the payload bay without difficulty.

The third EVA (6 hours 47 minutes on 6 Dec, the second for Hoffman and Musgrave) was designed to replace the Wide Field/Planetary Camera (WF/PC), one of the five scientific instruments on the telescope, in a four-hour operation. In fact, the astronauts accomplished the exchange with the improved WF/PCII (an upgraded spare modified to compensate for the flawed mirror) in just forty minutes. Two magnetometers were also installed in the top of the telescope. EVA 4 (6 hours 50 minutes on 7 Dec, the second for Thornton and Akers) included the replacement of another primary instrument, the High-Speed Photometer, with the Corrective Optics for Telescope Axial Replacement (COSTAR) unit – often dubbed Hubble’s “spec­tacles” – which redirected light to three of the four remaining instruments, thus compensating for the flaw in the primary mirror. The astronauts also installed a co-processor that improved the memory and speed of the onboard computer. During this EVA, Tom Akers achieved a new cumulative record for an American astronaut

on EVA (29 hours 39 minutes), surpassing the 20-year-old record set by Gene Cernan on Apollo 17 at 24 hours 14 minutes. Kathy Thornton became the record-holder for female EVA astronauts at 21 hours 10 minutes. Both had performed EVAs on STS-49 in 1992. During the final EVA (7 hours 21 minutes on 9 Dec, the third by Hoffman and Musgrave), the astronauts replaced the Solar Array Drive Electronics (SADE) unit, as well as installing the Goddard High Resolution Spectrograph Redundancy (GHRS) equipment and placing two protective covers over the original magnetometer.

During FD 8, prior to the final EVA, the Shuttle’s orbit was boosted to 595 km. At this height, the telescope would be released on FD 9, after deployment of the twin boom antennas, unfurling of solar arrays and checking of onboard systems. The redeployment was delayed several hours when ground controllers had to troubleshoot erratic telemetric data from the telescope’s systems monitor. This had occurred before and was not connected to the recent servicing by the astronauts. The mission ended one orbit earlier than planned to allow the crew two landing opportunities at KSC.

Milestones

165th manned space flight

89th US manned space flight

59th Shuttle mission

5th flight of Endeavour

1st Hubble servicing mission

29th US and 53rd flight with EVA operations

1st flight of ESA astronaut as MS2

US astronaut cumulative EVA record – Akers

World female cumulative EVA record – Thornton