STS-35

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Mission emblem
Mission emblem STS-35
Mission dates
Mission: STS-35
COSPAR-ID : 1990-106A
Crew: 7th
Begin: December 2, 1990, 06:49:01  UTC
Starting place: Kennedy Space Center , LC-39B
Landing: December 11, 1990, 05:54:09 UTC
Landing place: Edwards Air Force Base , Runway 22
Flight duration: 8d 23h 5m 8s
Earth orbits: 144
Rotation time : 91.7 min
Orbit inclination : 28.5 °
Apogee : 363 km
Perigee : 350 km
Covered track: 5.9 million km
Payload: Astro-1
Team photo
v. l. No. Robert Parker, Guy Gardner, Ronald Parise, Vance Brand, Jeffrey Hoffman, John Lounge, Samuel Durrance
v. l. No. Robert Parker, Guy Gardner, Ronald Parise, Vance Brand, Jeffrey Hoffman, John Lounge, Samuel Durrance
◄ Before / After ►
STS-38 STS-37

STS-35 ( English S pace T ransportation S ystem) is a mission name for the US space shuttle Columbia (OV-102) of NASA . The launch took place on December 2, 1990. It was the 38th space shuttle mission and the tenth flight of the Columbia space shuttle.

The mission was to be carried out by Columbia under the designation STS-61-E as early as March 1986, but was suspended due to the Challenger disaster .

team

Substitute team

During STS-61-E should Richard Richards and David Leestma to fly. They have been replaced by Gardner and Lounge.

Jon Andrew McBride was originally assigned as the commander . However, he left NASA in May 1989 and was replaced by Vance Brand. Brand thus made his fourth space flight and, at almost 60 years of age, was the oldest person in space to date. That record was broken in 1996 by the 61-year-old Story Musgrave . This was the last shuttle flight in which one of the astronauts from the Apollo program was used.

Mission overview

STS-35 and STS-41 on the launch ramps at KSC

The tenth flight of the Columbia space shuttle should have started on May 16, 1990 according to the original plans. Due to a fault in the orbiter's cooling system, the launch was postponed to May 30th. When refueling for takeoff, however, it was found that there were two major leaks in the outer tank that could not be repaired on the launch pad, so the shuttle was rolled back into the Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB). Because of this and some other problems that arose as a result, the start was delayed by a few months, more than any other shuttle flight before. This delay resulted in space shuttle Discovery's STS-41 flight prior to STS-35. For the second time in shuttle history, there were two shuttles on the two launch ramps at the same time. The first time it had been a few months earlier, on April 22, 1990, the STS-35 was first rolled to the LC-39A launch pad while the Discovery STS-31 was still on the LC-39A launch pad.

The Columbia finally took off on December 2 for the STS-35 mission. The main objective of the mission was astronomical observations with the devices of the ASTRO-1 platform in the range of UV and X-rays. The ASTRO-1 unit was carried in the payload bay and contained the following instruments:

The Hopkins Ultraviolet Telescope (HUT), the Ultraviolet Imaging Telescope (UIT), and the Wisconsin Ultraviolet Photo Polarimetry Experiment (WUPPE) in the hold during the STS-35 mission
Hopkins Ultraviolet Telescope (HUT)
Telescope for the ultraviolet spectral range with a mirror diameter of 90 cm. HUT was developed by the Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore. It contained a spectrograph that covered the wavelength ranges 82.5 to 185 nm and 42 to 92.5 nm with about 0.3 nm resolution. The same instrument flew again later on the STS-67 mission .
Wisconsin Ultraviolet Photo-Polarimeter Experiment (WUPPE)
A telescope with a mirror diameter of 50 cm for spectroscopy and polarimetry in the ultraviolet spectral range. WUPPE was developed at the University of Wisconsin and recorded spectra in the wavelength range 140 to 330 nm with a resolution of 0.6 nm, during the two missions a total of 260 data sets of 186 celestial objects (mainly stars) were obtained.
Ultraviolet Imaging Telescope (UIT)
A telescope for the ultraviolet spectral range (120 to 330 nm) with a 38 cm mirror diameter. It was developed by NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center. The UIT's field of view was 40 arc minutes with a spatial resolution of three arc seconds. During the flight, 821 images of 66 objects were obtained, the same instrument flew again later during the mission STS-67 .
Broad Band X-Ray Telescope (BBXRT)
This instrument for X-ray astronomy consisted of two telescopes with a diameter of 44 cm each. The instrument was developed and built by NASA's Laboratory for High Energy Astrophysics . It was not mounted on the ASTRO-1 platform, it was simply carried in the shuttle's payload bay.

There were some technical problems during the mission, for example the displays for aligning the ASTRO-1 telescopes did not work. The telescopes therefore had to be controlled from Earth. The scientific goals could still be achieved to about 70 percent.

The Columbia landed on December 11th at Edwards Air Force Base, ten days later the Columbia was brought back to KSC.

See also

Web links

Commons : STS-35  - album with pictures, videos and audio files