STS-89 - Mission Highlights

Mission Highlights

The continuing cooperative effort in space exploration between the United States and Russia and a joint spacewalk will be the focus of NASA's first Shuttle mission of 1998 with the launch of Space Shuttle Endeavour on Mission STS-89. During the mission, more than 3,175 kilograms (7,000 lb) of experiments, supplies and hardware are scheduled to be transferred between the two spacecraft.

This was the eighth of nine planned missions to Mir and the fifth one involving an exchange of U.S. astronauts. Astronaut David Wolf, who had been on Mir since late September 1997, was replaced by Astronaut Andrew Thomas. Thomas spent approximately 4 months on the orbiting Russian facility before returning to Earth when Discovery docked to Mir in late May during STS-91.

SPACEHAB Payloads include the Advanced X-Ray Detector (ADV XDT), the Advanced Commercial Generic Bioprocessing Apparatus (ADV CGBA), the EORF, Mechanics of Granular Materials (MGM) Experiment, Intra-Vehicular Radiation Environment Measurements by the Real-Time Radiation Monitor (RME-1312), Space Acceleration Measurement System (SAMS), VOA and the Volatile Removal Assembly prototype for the ISS Water Recovery System

In-Cabin Payloads include the Microgravity Plant Nutrient Experiment MPNE, the Shuttle Ionospheric Modification with Pulsed Local Exhaust (SIMPLEX), the Closed Equilibrated Biological Aquatic System (CEBAS), the TeleMedicine Instrumentation Pack (TMIP), Global Positioning System Development Test Objective (GPS DTO), the Human Performance (HP) Experiment, MSD, EarthKAM, Orbiter Space Vision System (OSVS) Shuttle Condensate Collection (RME-1331), the Thermo-Electric Holding Module (TEHM), the Space Linear Acceleration Mass Measurement Device (DSO 914), the Co-Culture Experiments (CoCult) and the Biochemistry of 3-D Tissue Engineering (BIO3D).

Get Away Special Experiments include the University of Michigan G-093 – Vortex Ring Transit Experiment (VORTEX), the German Aerospace Center and University Giessen G-141 – Structure of Marangoni Convection in Floating Zones Payload, the German Aerospace Center and the Technical University of Clausthal G-145 Glass Fining Experiment and the Chinese Academy of Sciences G-432 canister containing 5 crystal growth and material sciences experiments.