STS-67

Int. Designation	1995-007A
Launched	2 March 1995
Launch Site	Pad 39A, Kennedy Space Center, Florida
Landed	18 March 1995
Landing Site	Runway 22, Edwards AFB, California
Launch Vehicle	OV-105 Endeavour/ET-69/SRB BI-071/SSME #1 2012;
	#2 2033; #3 2031
Duration	16 days 15 hrs 8 min 48 sec
Call sign	Endeavour
Objective	Astro-2 payload; EDO mission

Flight Crew

OSWALD, Stephen Scott, 43, civilian, commander, 3rd mission Previous missions: STS-42 (1992); STS-56 (1993)

GREGORY, William George, 37, USAF, pilot GRUNSFELD, John Mace, 36, civilian mission specialist 1 LAWRENCE, Wendy Barrien, USN, 35, mission specialist 2 JERNIGAN, Tamara Elizabeth, 35, civilian, mission specialist 3, 3rd mission Previous missions: STS-40 (1991); STS-52 (1992)

DURRANCE, Samuel Thornton, 51, civilian, payload specialist 1, 2nd mission Previous mission: STS-35 (1990)

PARISE, Ronald Anthony, 43, civilian, payload specialist 2, 2nd mission Previous mission: STS-35 (1990)

Flight Log

STS-67 was the long-awaited re-flight of the Astro payload, flying the same three telescopes as those on the original Astro mission. It was also the second flight of the two payload specialists who had accompanied the package in 1990. Improvements to the Hopkins UV Telescope (HUT) since Astro-1 had made the instrument three times more sensitive and the mission’s 16-day duration was double that of the first mission. This was the latest in the series of EDO missions, maximising the scientific return from the vehicle and payload in preparation for Shuttle-Mir and ISS missions.

After a launch delay of only a minute due to concerns with a heater system in the Flash Evaporator System, the countdown proceeded to launch using a back-up heater. Once on orbit, a leaky RCS thruster briefly delayed activation of the payload, but this, too, was soon resolved. The crew settled down to operating Astro in the familiar two-shift system (Red Shift of Oswald, Gregory, Grunsfeld and Parise; Blue Shift of Lawrence, Jernigan and Durrance), essentially providing 32 days worth of operations in 16 flight days. The crew activated and operated a range of mid-deck and

Back-dropped against the desert of Namibia in Africa the Astro-2 payload is deployed from the payload bay of Endeavour during the two-week astronomy mission. Two GAS canisters are in the lower left foreground and the Igloo, which supports the package of experiments, is in centre foreground payload bay secondary experiments, as well as the primary Astro payload package. The crew used the discoveries from Astro 1 for their observation programme, as well as targeting new areas. In addition to the HUT instrument, the Wisconsin UV Photo- Polarimeter Experiment (WUPPE) measured UV radiation photometry and polarisa­tion from a range of astronomical objects, while the UV Imaging Telescope (UIT) took wide-field photography of objects in UVB light. Observations were planned daily as the mission proceeded and divided into three-hour blocks covering two orbits, with one of the three telescopes assigned higher priority each time. The Astro-2 programme encompassed 23 different science objectives and achieved all of them.

HUT returned over 200 separate observations of more than 100 celestial objects. It recorded intergalactic helium, and in conjunction with the Hubble Space Telescope, took UV measurements of the aurora of the planet Jupiter, and studied the Jovian moon Io as well as the atmospheres of Venus and Mars. Despite the loss of one of its two cameras, 80 per cent of the scientific objectives of the UIT were also obtained. UIT imaged around two dozen spiral galaxies and obtained the first complete UV images of the Moon. The instrument looked at stars over 100 times hotter than our own Sun, at some of the faintest stars known, and at elliptical galaxies. The WUPPE gathered additional data on the dust clouds in the Milky Way and the nearby Large Magellanic Cloud galaxy. Several types of stars were investigated and the instrument was also used to study three recently exploded novae.

STS-67 also became the first mission to be connected to the internet, with its own Mission Home Page. There were reportedly 2.4 million requests recorded on the site at Marshal Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, from 200,000 computers across 59 countries. The landing was delayed a day from 17 March due to bad weather at the Cape and when things did not improve the following day, the landing was diverted to Edwards.

Milestones

177th manned space flight 98th US manned space flight 68th Shuttle mission 8th mission for Endeavour 2nd flight of Astro payload 1st internet link-up 5th EDO mission