STS-70

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Mission emblem
Mission emblem STS-70
Mission dates
Mission: STS-70
COSPAR-ID : 1995-035A
Crew: 5
Begin: July 13, 1995, 13:41:55  UTC
Starting place: Kennedy Space Center , LC-39B
Landing: July 22, 1995, 12:02:00 UTC
Landing place: Kennedy Space Center, Lane 33
Flight duration: 8d 22h 20m 5s
Earth orbits: 143
Rotation time : 90.5 min
Orbit inclination : 28.4 °
Apogee : 315 km
Perigee : 287 km
Covered track: 5.9 million km
Payload: TDRS G
Team photo
v. l. No. Kevin Kregel, Nancy Currie, Terence Henricks, Mary Weber, Donald Thomas
v. l. No. Kevin Kregel, Nancy Currie, Terence Henricks, Mary Weber, Donald Thomas
◄ Before / After ►
STS-71 STS-69

STS-70 ( english S pace T ransportation S ystem) is a mission designation for the US Space Shuttle Discovery (OV-103) of NASA . The launch took place on July 13, 1995. It was the 70th space shuttle mission and the 21st flight of the Discovery.

team

Mission parameters

  • Mass: 20,159 kg payload

Problems before starting

A rather unusual breakdown had ruined the plan, the launch of the space shuttle in June. When the Discovery was already at the launch site in June 1995 and the preparations for launch were already well advanced, gold woodpeckers had hammered more than 70 holes into the insulation layer of the external tank of the shuttle, so that the Discovery had to be driven back to the assembly hall to avoid the damage could be fixed.

Since that event, some owl dummies have stood at the Kennedy Space Center to scare off the birds. The birds' nests were also taped up after this breakdown.

Mission description

The main task was to deploy the seventh Tracking and Data Relay Satellite (TDRS G) using the two-stage Inertial Upper Stage (IUS) solid fuel rocket.

The launched satellite was the sixth of its kind placed in orbit. The first of its kind was brought into orbit by STS-6 in 1983, the second was lost in the Challenger disaster (mission STS-51-L ). The other TDRS satellites were carried by STS-26 (TDRS C), STS-29 (TDRS D), STS-43 (TDRS E) and STS-54 (TDRS F). The TDRS network is currently being reorganized and in the future will include two fully operational satellites covering the Western and Eastern Hemisphere, one fully functional as a replacement, one near-depleted at the end of its life and one partially functional that will support the Compton Gamma Ray Observatory ( GRO). This is also used to cover an area on earth that cannot be reached by the others.

TDRS-G preparing for take-off

The TDRS system is a space-based network that provides services such as communication, telemetry, orbit tracking, data collection and command transmission, which are essential for the space shuttle and other low-orbit spacecraft such as the Hubble Space Telescope , the Compton Gamma Ray Observatory , the Upper Atmosphere Research Satellite , the Cosmic Background Explorer , the Extreme Ultraviolet Explorer , TOPEX-Poseidon , Landsat and many more. The released satellite will be in geosynchronous orbit at 35,888 km altitude at 178 degrees west longitude. It was built by TRW and weighs around 2,200 kg.

The deployment of the satellite was controlled from three independent control centers. The White Sands Missile Range ground station monitored the TDRS, ground control at the Johnson Space Center (JSC) monitored the shuttle, and the inertial upper stage control center at Onizuka Air Force Base in Sunnyvale, California monitored the booster platform. The satellite was suspended six hours after the shuttle took off. The satellite has a wingspan of 17 m when fully extended.

Further tasks of the mission were:

  • Physiological and Anatomical Rodent Experiment / National Institutes of Health-Rodents (PARE / NIH-R)
  • Bioreactor Demonstration System (BDS), Commercial Protein Crystal Growth (CPCG)
  • Space Tissue Loss / National Institutes of Health-Cells (STL / NIH-C)
  • Biological Research in Canisters (BRIC)
  • Shuttle Amateur Radio Experiment-II ( SAREX- II), Visual Function Tester-4 (VFT-4)
  • Hand-Held, Earth Oriented, Real-Time, Cooperative, User-Friendly, Location-Targeting and Environmental System (HERCULES)
  • Microcapsules in Space-B (MIS-B)
  • Windows Experiment (WINDEX)
  • Radiation Monitoring Equipment-III (RME-III)
  • Military Applications of Ship Tracks (MAST)

See also

Web links

Commons : STS-70  - album with pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Matthias founder, Horst Hoffmann, Gerhard Kowalski: SOS in space . Schwarzkopf & Schwarzkopf, 2001, ISBN 978-3-89602-339-1 , pp. 260 .