STS-42
Encyclopedia
STS-42 was a Space Shuttle
Discovery
mission with the Spacelab
module. Liftoff which was originally scheduled for 8:45 EST
(13:45 UTC
) 22 January 1992, but the launch was delayed due to weather constraints. Discovery successfully lifted off an hour later at 9:52 EST (14:52 UTC). The main goal of the mission was to study the effects of microgravity
on a variety of organisms. The shuttle landed at 8:07 PST
(16:07 UTC
) on 30 January 1992 on Runway 22, Edwards Air Force Base
, California.
STS-42 was the first of two flights in 1992 of Discovery, the second of which occurred during STS-53
, which launched on 2 December 1992. The mission was also the last mission of the Space Shuttle Discovery to have a seven-member crew until STS-82
, which was launched on 11 February 1997.
's first astronaut, Ulf Merbold
, who was making his second spaceflight, and Canada's first female astronaut, Roberta Bondar
. In order to allow around-the-clock monitoring of experiments, the astronauts were divided into a red team and a blue team.
, was originally assigned to fly as a Mission Specialist for this mission, but died 7 months prior the launch.
Launch: 22 January 1992, 9:52:33 am EST. Launch delayed one hour due to weather constraints. Launch Weight: 243396 lbs.
Carried into orbit the International Microgravity Laboratory-1 (IML-1), a pressurized manned Spacelab
module, to explore in depth the complex effects of weightlessness
on living organisms and materials processing. The international crew, divided into Red and Blue teams, conducted experiments on the human nervous system's adaptation to low gravity and the effects of microgravity on other life forms such as shrimp
egg
s, lentil
seedlings, fruit fly
eggs and bacteria. Low gravity materials processing experiments included crystal growth
from a variety of substances such as enzymes, mercury
iodine
and a virus. Other payloads included 10 Get Away Special (GAS) canisters, a number of middeck payloads and two Shuttle Student Involvement Program (SSIP) experiments. Middeck payloads included Gelation of SOLS: Applied microgravity research (GOSAMR), Investigations into Polymer Membrane Processing (IPMP) and the Radiation Monitoring Experiment (RME-III).
Landing: 30 January 1992, 8:07:17 am PST, Runway 22, Edwards Air Force Base
, CA., Rollout distance: 9,811 feet. Mission extended one day for continued scientific experimentation. Orbiter returned to Kennedy Space Center
on 16 February 1992. Landing Weight: 218016 lbs.
Manley "Sonny" Carter
, who was killed in the crash of Atlantic Southeast Airlines
Flight 2311
in Brunswick, Georgia
while on a commercial airplane traveling for NASA. Carter was originally assigned as a mission specialist on STS-42 at the time of his death.
Space Shuttle
The Space Shuttle was a manned orbital rocket and spacecraft system operated by NASA on 135 missions from 1981 to 2011. The system combined rocket launch, orbital spacecraft, and re-entry spaceplane with modular add-ons...
Discovery
Space Shuttle Discovery
Space Shuttle Discovery is one of the retired orbiters of the Space Shuttle program of NASA, the space agency of the United States, and was operational from its maiden flight, STS-41-D on August 30, 1984, until its final landing during STS-133 on March 9, 2011...
mission with the Spacelab
Spacelab
Spacelab was a reusable laboratory used on certain spaceflights flown by the Space Shuttle. The laboratory consisted of multiple components, including a pressurized module, an unpressurized carrier and other related hardware housed in the Shuttle's cargo bay...
module. Liftoff which was originally scheduled for 8:45 EST
North American Eastern Time Zone
The Eastern Time Zone of the United States and Canada is a time zone that falls mostly along the east coast of North America. Its UTC time offset is −5 hrs during standard time and −4 hrs during daylight saving time...
(13:45 UTC
Coordinated Universal Time
Coordinated Universal Time is the primary time standard by which the world regulates clocks and time. It is one of several closely related successors to Greenwich Mean Time. Computer servers, online services and other entities that rely on having a universally accepted time use UTC for that purpose...
) 22 January 1992, but the launch was delayed due to weather constraints. Discovery successfully lifted off an hour later at 9:52 EST (14:52 UTC). The main goal of the mission was to study the effects of microgravity
Weightlessness
Weightlessness is the condition that exists for an object or person when they experience little or no acceleration except the acceleration that defines their inertial trajectory, or the trajectory of pure free-fall...
on a variety of organisms. The shuttle landed at 8:07 PST
Pacific Time Zone
The Pacific Time Zone observes standard time by subtracting eight hours from Coordinated Universal Time . The clock time in this zone is based on the mean solar time of the 120th meridian west of the Greenwich Observatory. During daylight saving time, its time offset is UTC-7.In the United States...
(16:07 UTC
Coordinated Universal Time
Coordinated Universal Time is the primary time standard by which the world regulates clocks and time. It is one of several closely related successors to Greenwich Mean Time. Computer servers, online services and other entities that rely on having a universally accepted time use UTC for that purpose...
) on 30 January 1992 on Runway 22, Edwards Air Force Base
Edwards Air Force Base
Edwards Air Force Base is a United States Air Force base located on the border of Kern County, Los Angeles County, and San Bernardino County, California, in the Antelope Valley. It is southwest of the central business district of North Edwards, California and due east of Rosamond.It is named in...
, California.
STS-42 was the first of two flights in 1992 of Discovery, the second of which occurred during STS-53
STS-53
-Mission parameters:*Mass:**Orbiter landing with payload: **Payload: *Perigee: *Apogee: *Inclination: 57.0°*Period: 92.0 min-Mission highlights:...
, which launched on 2 December 1992. The mission was also the last mission of the Space Shuttle Discovery to have a seven-member crew until STS-82
STS-82
STS-82 was a Hubble Space Telescope servicing mission by Space Shuttle Discovery. The mission launched from Kennedy Space Center, Florida, on 11 February 1997 and returned to earth on 21 February 1997 at Kennedy Space Center.-Crew:...
, which was launched on 11 February 1997.
Crew
The crew of STS-42 included West GermanyWest Germany
West Germany is the common English, but not official, name for the Federal Republic of Germany or FRG in the period between its creation in May 1949 to German reunification on 3 October 1990....
's first astronaut, Ulf Merbold
Ulf Merbold
Dr. Ulf Dietrich Merbold is the first West German citizen and second German native to have flown in space. He is also the first member of the European Space Agency Astronaut Corps to participate in a spaceflight mission. He holds the distinction of being the first non-US citizen to reach orbit in...
, who was making his second spaceflight, and Canada's first female astronaut, Roberta Bondar
Roberta Bondar
Roberta Bondar,is OC, O.Ont, FRCP, FRSC is Canada's first female astronaut and the first neurologist in space. Following more than a decade as NASA's head of space medicine, Bondar became a consultant and speaker in the business, scientific and medical communities.-Education:Roberta Bondar had...
. In order to allow around-the-clock monitoring of experiments, the astronauts were divided into a red team and a blue team.
Crew Notes
Manley L. CarterSonny Carter
Manley Lanier "Sonny" Carter, Jr. was an American physician, professional soccer player, naval officer, and NASA astronaut who flew on STS-33.-Early life:...
, was originally assigned to fly as a Mission Specialist for this mission, but died 7 months prior the launch.
Mission parameters
- MassMassMass can be defined as a quantitive measure of the resistance an object has to change in its velocity.In physics, mass commonly refers to any of the following three properties of matter, which have been shown experimentally to be equivalent:...
:- Orbiter at launch: 110400 kilograms (243,390.3 lb)
- Orbiter landing with payload: 98890 kilograms (218,015.1 lb)
- Payload: 13066 kilograms (28,805.6 lb)
- PerigeePerigeePerigee is the point at which an object makes its closest approach to the Earth.. Often the term is used in a broader sense to define the point in an orbit where the orbiting body is closest to the body it orbits. The opposite is the apogee, the farthest or highest point.The Greek prefix "peri"...
: 291 kilometres (180.8 mi) - Apogee: 307 kilometres (190.8 mi)
- InclinationInclinationInclination in general is the angle between a reference plane and another plane or axis of direction.-Orbits:The inclination is one of the six orbital parameters describing the shape and orientation of a celestial orbit...
: 57.0° - PeriodOrbital periodThe orbital period is the time taken for a given object to make one complete orbit about another object.When mentioned without further qualification in astronomy this refers to the sidereal period of an astronomical object, which is calculated with respect to the stars.There are several kinds of...
: 90.5 min
Mission highlights
Carried into orbit the International Microgravity Laboratory-1 (IML-1), a pressurized manned Spacelab
Spacelab
Spacelab was a reusable laboratory used on certain spaceflights flown by the Space Shuttle. The laboratory consisted of multiple components, including a pressurized module, an unpressurized carrier and other related hardware housed in the Shuttle's cargo bay...
module, to explore in depth the complex effects of weightlessness
Weightlessness
Weightlessness is the condition that exists for an object or person when they experience little or no acceleration except the acceleration that defines their inertial trajectory, or the trajectory of pure free-fall...
on living organisms and materials processing. The international crew, divided into Red and Blue teams, conducted experiments on the human nervous system's adaptation to low gravity and the effects of microgravity on other life forms such as shrimp
Shrimp
Shrimp are swimming, decapod crustaceans classified in the infraorder Caridea, found widely around the world in both fresh and salt water. Adult shrimp are filter feeding benthic animals living close to the bottom. They can live in schools and can swim rapidly backwards. Shrimp are an important...
egg
Egg (biology)
An egg is an organic vessel in which an embryo first begins to develop. In most birds, reptiles, insects, molluscs, fish, and monotremes, an egg is the zygote, resulting from fertilization of the ovum, which is expelled from the body and permitted to develop outside the body until the developing...
s, lentil
Lentil
The lentil is an edible pulse. It is a bushy annual plant of the legume family, grown for its lens-shaped seeds...
seedlings, fruit fly
Drosophila melanogaster
Drosophila melanogaster is a species of Diptera, or the order of flies, in the family Drosophilidae. The species is known generally as the common fruit fly or vinegar fly. Starting from Charles W...
eggs and bacteria. Low gravity materials processing experiments included crystal growth
Crystal growth
A crystal is a solid material whose constituent atoms, molecules, or ions are arranged in an orderly repeating pattern extending in all three spatial dimensions. Crystal growth is a major stage of a crystallization process, and consists in the addition of new atoms, ions, or polymer strings into...
from a variety of substances such as enzymes, mercury
Mercury (element)
Mercury is a chemical element with the symbol Hg and atomic number 80. It is also known as quicksilver or hydrargyrum...
iodine
Iodine
Iodine is a chemical element with the symbol I and atomic number 53. The name is pronounced , , or . The name is from the , meaning violet or purple, due to the color of elemental iodine vapor....
and a virus. Other payloads included 10 Get Away Special (GAS) canisters, a number of middeck payloads and two Shuttle Student Involvement Program (SSIP) experiments. Middeck payloads included Gelation of SOLS: Applied microgravity research (GOSAMR), Investigations into Polymer Membrane Processing (IPMP) and the Radiation Monitoring Experiment (RME-III).
Landing: 30 January 1992, 8:07:17 am PST, Runway 22, Edwards Air Force Base
Edwards Air Force Base
Edwards Air Force Base is a United States Air Force base located on the border of Kern County, Los Angeles County, and San Bernardino County, California, in the Antelope Valley. It is southwest of the central business district of North Edwards, California and due east of Rosamond.It is named in...
, CA., Rollout distance: 9,811 feet. Mission extended one day for continued scientific experimentation. Orbiter returned to Kennedy Space Center
Kennedy Space Center
The John F. Kennedy Space Center is the NASA installation that has been the launch site for every United States human space flight since 1968. Although such flights are currently on hiatus, KSC continues to manage and operate unmanned rocket launch facilities for America's civilian space program...
on 16 February 1992. Landing Weight: 218016 lbs.
Mission insignia
The four stars in the lower blue field and two stars in the upper blue field of the insignia symbolize the flight's numerical designation in the Space Transportation System's mission sequence. The single gold star above the horizon on the right is in honor of astronautAstronaut
An astronaut or cosmonaut is a person trained by a human spaceflight program to command, pilot, or serve as a crew member of a spacecraft....
Manley "Sonny" Carter
Sonny Carter
Manley Lanier "Sonny" Carter, Jr. was an American physician, professional soccer player, naval officer, and NASA astronaut who flew on STS-33.-Early life:...
, who was killed in the crash of Atlantic Southeast Airlines
Atlantic Southeast Airlines
Atlantic Southeast Airlines is an American airline based in the A-Tech Center in College Park, Georgia, flying to 144 destinations as a Delta Connection carrier and, as of February 2010, commenced service as a United Express carrier. It is a wholly owned subsidiary of SkyWest, Inc. ASA operates...
Flight 2311
Atlantic Southeast Airlines Flight 2311
Atlantic Southeast Airlines Flight 2311 was a regularly scheduled commuter flight from Atlanta, Georgia to Brunswick, Georgia which suffered an uncontrolled collision with terrain during landing approach to Glynco Jetport , just north of Brunswick, on April 5, 1991. The aircraft was an Embraer...
in Brunswick, Georgia
Brunswick, Georgia
Brunswick is the major urban and economic center in southeastern Georgia in the United States. The municipality is located on a harbor near the Atlantic Ocean, approximately 30 miles north of Florida and 70 miles south of South Carolina. Brunswick is bordered on the east by the Atlantic...
while on a commercial airplane traveling for NASA. Carter was originally assigned as a mission specialist on STS-42 at the time of his death.
See also
- Space scienceSpace scienceThe term space science may mean:* The study of issues specifically related to space travel and space exploration, including space medicine.* Science performed in outer space ....
- Space ShuttleSpace ShuttleThe Space Shuttle was a manned orbital rocket and spacecraft system operated by NASA on 135 missions from 1981 to 2011. The system combined rocket launch, orbital spacecraft, and re-entry spaceplane with modular add-ons...
- List of space shuttle missions
- List of human spaceflights chronologically