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Mission: | STS-34 |
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| Launch pad: | 39-B |
| Launch: | October 18, 1989,
12:53:40 p.m. EDT |
| Landing: | October 23, 1989,
9:33:00 a.m. PDT |
| Duration: | 4 days, 23 hours,
39 minutes, 20 seconds |
| Orbit altitude: | 185 nautical miles (343 km) |
| Orbit inclination: | 34.3 degrees |
| Distance traveled: | 2,000,000 miles (3,200,000 km) approx |
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:
STS-28 |
:
STS-33 |
__NOTOC__
was a
Space Shuttle mission by
NASA using the
Space Shuttle Atlantis . It was the 31st shuttle mission, and the 5th flight for Atlantis. It carried the
Galileo Probe bound for
Jupiter .
- ---''Orbiter liftoff:'' 116,831 kg
- ---''Orbiter landing:'' 88,881 kg
- ---''Payload:'' 22,064 kg
- 298 km
- 307 km
- 34.3°
- 90.6 min
The Space Shuttle Atlantis lifted off from Pad B, Launch Complex
39, KSC, at 12:53 p.m. EDT on Oct. 18, 1989. It carried the
Jupiter-bound
Galileo spacecraft in its cargo bay. The
Countdown was held at T minus 5 minutes for 3 minutes and 40 seconds to update the
onboard computer for a change in the Transoceanic Abort Landing (TAL)
site. The TAL site was changed from Ben Guerir Air Base, Morocco, to
Zaragoza Air Base, Spain, because of rain at Ben Guerir.
Launch was originally targeted for Oct. 12, the first day of the
41-day launch period during which the planets are properly aligned
for a flight past Venus and Earth and, eventually, to Jupiter.
Liftoff was rescheduled for Oct. 17 to replace a faulty main engine
controller for Space Shuttle Main Engine No. 2. It was postponed
again until Oct. 18 because of rainshowers within 20 miles of Kennedy
Space Center's Shuttle Landing Facility. The weather conditions were
in violation of the launch commit criteria for a Return To Launch
Site (RTLS) landing in the event of an aborted flight. It was the
fifth flight of Atlantis and the 31st Space Shuttle mission.
The primary payload, the Project Galileo spacecraft with its
attached Inertial Upper Stage (IUS), was successfully deployed on its
journey to Jupiter. This was only the second Shuttle flight to deploy
a planetary spacecraft. (The first was
STS-30 on May 4, 1989, with
the
Magellan Spacecraft .)
NASA marks a number of firsts with STS-34. Galileo will be the
first spacecraft to orbit an outer planet and to penetrate the
atmosphere of an outer planet. Also, the spacecraft is scheduled to
make the first extended observations of the Jovian system and first
direct sampling of Jupiter's atmosphere, as well as the first
asteroid flybys.
There were several anomalies during the flight, but none had a
major impact on the mission. On Oct. 22, an alarm woke the crew when
the
Gas Generator Fuel Pump system A heaters on Auxiliary Power Unit
(APU) 2 failed to recycle at the upper limits of the system. There
were also some minor problems with the
Flash Evaporator System for
cooling the orbiter, and the cryogenic oxygen manifold valve 2, which
was left closed for the rest of the mission. A
Hasselblad camera
jammed twice, and a spare camera had to be used.
Because of high winds predicted at the nominal landing time, the
landing was moved two orbits earlier to 12:33 EDT. Atlantis landed at
Runway 23, Edwards AFB, CA, after a mission duration of 4 days, 23
hours and 40 minutes.
Crew. The crew members were Commander Donald E. Williams,
Pilot Michael J. McCulley, and Mission Specialists Ellen S. Baker,
Franklin R. Chang-Diaz and Shannon W. Lucid. McCulley and Baker were
making their first flight.
Payload and Experiments. The first major task in orbit was
deployment of the Galileo spacecraft with its attached IUS booster.
Deployment occurred on schedule at 7:15 EDT, slightly more than six
hours after launch, and the IUS performed flawlessly to send the
spacecraft toward Venus on the first leg of its six-year journey to
Jupiter. The spacecraft was injected on a Venus transfer orbit at
8:20 p.m. EDT, and separated from the IUS 47 minutes later.
Galileo will need a triple gravity assist -- from Venus, Earth
and then Earth again -- to propel it from the inner part of the solar
system to Jupiter in the outer section. Galileo has two major
components, an orbiter which will examine Jupiter and its four
largest moons for at least two years, and a probe which will take
direct samplings of the Jovian atmosphere for up to 75 minutes before
heat and pressure destroy it.
Besides the Galileo spacecraft, the payload bay held two
canisters containing the Shuttle Solar Backscatter Ultraviolet
(SSBUV) experiment. SSBUV, which made its first flight on STS-34, was
developed by NASA to check the calibration of the ozone sounders on
free-flying satellites, and to verify the accuracy of atmospheric
ozone and solar irradiance data. The experiment operated
successfully.
All five middeck experiments also were deemed to have operated
successfully. That includes the Polymer Morphology (PM) experiment,
sponsored by the 3M Company under a joint endeavor agreement with
NASA. The PM experiment was designed to observe the melting and
resolidifying of different types of polymers while in orbit. Flying
again was the Mesoscale Lightning Experiment to observe the visual
characteristics of large-scale lightning in the upper atmosphere.
Troubleshooting by the crew was successful for a student
experiment on ice crystal growth. The experiment's first activation
did not produce crystals because the supercooled water formed an ice
slag on the cooling plate. The crew turned the experiment off,
allowing the ice to thaw, and then redispersed the liquid. Several
crystals formed.
Lucid and Baker completed the Growth Hormone Concentration and
Distribution in Plants experiment on Oct. 22 by freezing samples of
corn seedlings grown on orbit during the mission.
In the cabin, the crew operated the IMAX (70-millimeter) camera,
last flown on STS-29 in March.
Chang-Diaz and Baker, a medical doctor, performed a detailed
supplementary objective by photographing and videotaping the veins
and arteries in the retinal wall of Baker's eyeball to provide
detailed measurements which might give clues about a possible
relationship between cranial pressure and motion sickness. Baker also
tested the effectiveness of anti-motion sickness medications in
space.
On Oct. 21, Costa Rican President Dr. Oscar Arias Sanchez talked
in Spanish with Chang-Diaz, a Costa Rica native, and greeted the
other crew members via a special telephone linkup. Chang-Diaz also
explained the mission's objectives in Spanish to listeners on the
ground.
Primary payload, Galileo/Jupiter spacecraft and attached Inertial Upper Stage (IUS), deployed six hours, 30 minutes into flight. IUS stages fired, placing Galileo on trajectory for six-year trip to Jupiter via gravitational boosts from
Venus and
Earth and possible observational brushes with asteroids
951 Gaspra and
243 Ida . Secondary payloads included Shuttle Solar Backscatter Ultraviolet (SSBUV) experiment carried in cargo bay, and in crew cabin, Growth Hormone Crystal Distribution (GHCD); Polymer Morphology (PM), Sensor Technology Experiment (STEX); Mesoscale Lightning Experiment (MLE); IMAX camera; Shuttle Student Involvement Program (SSIP) experiment that investigated ice crystal formation in zero gravity; and ground-based Air Force Maui Optical Site (AMOS) experiment.
