The space shuttle program wraps up with the final flight of Space Shuttle Atlantis. The orbiter is scheduled to lift off July 8, weather permitting, and it will circle the earth for 13 days. The historic final mission of the space shuttle program will conclude NASA's regular visits to earth orbit aboard the fleet of reusable spacecraft.
Sending a crew up into space is a lot of work and takes technical perfection on many levels. Imagine what kind of effort it would have taken to plan these five missions of the space shuttle, the longest in the program's history.
STS-80
STS-80, or the "Space Transport System" mission number 80 was the longest in the history of the space shuttle. Space Shuttle Columbia roared into space Nov. 19, 1996, and the crew deployed and retrieved two special satellites in orbit. The 17-day mission was so long because the satellites needed to spend certain amounts of time in space to collect data. The crew was supposed to test equipment designed for the International Space Station, which hadn't even begun to be built yet, but an airlock canceled two planned spacewalks.
STS-78
Columbia was involved in the second-longest space shuttle flight five months before its record-breaking mission. For 16 days and 21 hours , the crew worked on the Life and Microgravity Spacelab in the cargo hold of the shuttle. More than 40 experiments were conducted to see how various things on earth performed in the near-weightless environment in outer space.
STS-67
Space Shuttle Endeavour launched March 2, 1995, and touched down in California 16 days and 15 hours later. The Astro Observatory remained in the payload bay to take observations in the ultraviolet spectrum in outer space. The crew helped run 23 different programs on the platform while in earth orbit. The mission was also the first one to have the crew connected to the Internet as they answered questions via computer.
STS-73
Columbia took off from Kennedy Space Center Oct. 20, 1995, and was the second time around for a popular microgravity experiment in the Spacelab module. Crews worked round-the-clock to conduct experiments on fluids, combustion and industrial applications that could be performed in outer space. Fifteen days and 21 hours later, the crew landed safely.
STS-123
Endeavour would once again prove useful on a long mission in March of 2008 . A crew of seven delivered hardware to the International Space Station including the huge Japanese Kibo Logistics Module and a Canadian Dextre robotics system. The reason the mission took so long was because it was constructing an important part of the ISS as it flew for 15 days, 18 hours.
Despite its retirement, the space shuttle program has left a lasting mark on Americans and space science. The rewards of the program have been key to mankind's conquering of the final frontier.
William Browning is a research librarian.
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