Missions: STS-63 Prepares for an Era in Station Resupply

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STS-63 was the first shuttle mission with a female pilot. The crew worked on experiments in the SPACEHAB module while the Shuttle did a fly-by of the Russian Space Station Mir in preparation for future docking missions.

CREW:
James D. Wetherbee, Commander; Eileen M. Collins, Pilot; C. Michael Foale, Ph.D., Mission Specialist; Janice E. Voss, Ph.D., Mission Specialist; Bernard A. Harris, Jr., M.D., Mission Specialist; Vladimir G. Titov, Cosmonaut

LAUNCH INFO:
Date: Feb. 3, 1995
Time: 12:22 a.m. EST
Site: Kennedy Space Center, FL

SHUTTLE FLIGHT:
Orbiter: Discovery (OV-103)
Orbit Altitude: 213 nautical miles
Orbit Inclination: 51.6°
Mission Duration: 8 Days, 6 hours, 28 minutes

LANDING INFO:
Date: Feb. 11, 1995
Time: 6:51 p.m. EST
Site: Kennedy Space Center, FL

PAYLOAD(S):
SPACEHAB-SM Single Module (FU1)
SPARTAN204

When Discovery took to orbit for the 20th time, NASA set the stage for future international cooperation in a pathfinding mission featuring a rendezvous with the Russian Space Station Mir, an assortment of scientific and commercial investigations in the SPACEHAB and a five-hour spacewalk.

STS-63's highest priority objective was to rendezvous with Mir in a dress rehearsal of docking missions that followed later in 1995. On the mission, Eileen Collins became the first woman to pilot a Space Shuttle mission. She was joined by the second Russian cosmonaut to fly aboard a U.S. Space Shuttle, Vladimir Titov.

SPACEHAB New System Features
As a result of experience gained on the first two SPACEHAB missions, it was clear that there were some resources that SPACEHAB shares with the Space Shuttle that are very scarce. One of those resources is crew time. SPACEHAB developed two new system features to reduce the demands on crew time significantly. The first new feature was a video switch to reduce the demand for crew time in video operations, and the second new feature was an experiment interface to the SPACEHAB telemetry system to reduce the demand for crew time in experiment data downlink.

Video Switch
The SPACEHAB video system uses camcorders that are tied to the Orbiter closed circuit television system and then downlinked through the Orbiter. On prior SPACEHAB missions, the crew set up the camcorders and manually switched from one camera to another, a time-consuming operational arrangement.

For this mission SPACEHAB installed a video switching unit allowing up to eight camcorders to be cabled into the SPACEHAB video switch. Then, by ground control, one of the camcorders could be switched into the Orbiter system for downlink. Also, another one of the camcorders could collect a digital image on a freeze frame and send it down through SPACEHAB's telemetry stream, independent of other Orbiter video downlink operations. This new video switch and digital television downlink capability provides operational flexibility that is valuable on this flight and on subsequent flights.

Experiment Data Interface
SPACEHAB has enhanced the experiment data interface with the SPACEHAB telemetry system in the interest of on-orbit efficiency. The SPACEHAB telemetry system now allows an experimenter with a standard RS232 computer interface to tie directly into the system and send continuous information down to the ground, offloading this task from the crew and enhancing ground controller monitoring of experiment status.

Windows
On the roof of the SPACEHAB laboratory, two 12-inch diameter windows were installed for STS-63. One window has a NASA docking camera to assist in the Mir proximity operations.

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