July 23, 1999

STS-93--A Historic Shuttle Mission

Image Credit: National Aeronautics and Space Administration.

This morning at 12:31 a.m., the space shuttle Columbia lifted off from launch pad 39-B at the Kennedy Space Center after three days of delays, first caused by a faulty sensor and then by weather conditions. The mission has historic significance:

• STS-93, as NASA has designated this mission, is being commanded by the first woman to lead a shuttle mission, Air Force Col. Eileen M. Collins. Commander Collins is supported by a crew of four--pilot Jeffrey S. Ashby, mission specialists Catherine G. Coleman and Steven A. Hawley, and French astronaut Michel Tognini.



• In its cargo bay, the space shuttle Columbia carries the Chandra X-ray Observatory, the most sophisticated X-ray telescope ever launched into Earth orbit. After the telescope is deployed from Columbia, it will be boosted into a 6,200- by 86,900-mile-high Earth orbit and observe such high-energy celestial objects as 100-million-degree-Fahrenheit gas enveloping distant galaxy clusters, quasars, supernovae and supernovae remnants, and matter falling into black holes.



• The launch of STS-93 was originally scheduled for July 20, the thirtieth anniversary of humans first setting foot on the Moon. On that day in 1969, astronaut Neil Armstrong climbed down the ladder of the Eagle, the lunar module of the Apollo 11 mission, and announced to the world, "That's one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind."

The nation and NASA can rightfully be proud of shuttle mission STS-93 and the accomplishments it symbolizes. We wish Commander Collins and her crew much success and a safe return.

More Cool Stuff

For links to additional information on space shuttle mission STS-93, go to:

http://www.ksc.nasa.gov/shuttle/missions/sts-93/countdown.html

For a biography of Air Force Col. and STS-93 Commander Eileen Collins, go to:

http://www-pao.ksc.nasa.gov/kscpao/captions/1999/feb/99pc0176.htm
http://www.jsc.nasa.gov/Bios/htmlbios/collins.html

The Chandra X-ray Observatory was built by the Space and Electronics Group of TRW Inc. and a team of supporting companies. For more information on this effort, go to:

http://www.businesswire.com/...

We featured the Chandra X-ray Observatory, originally known as AXAF (Advanced X-Ray Astrophysics Facility), in our Observation of the Week of April 22, 1998:

http://observe.ivv.nasa.gov/nasa/ootw/1998/ootw_980422/ob980422.html

NASA named the Chandra X-ray Observatory in honor of Nobel Laureate Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar:

http://www1.msfc.nasa.gov/NEWSROOM/news/releases/1998/98-253.html

As part of its Learning Technologies Project (LTP), NASA supports a number of educational Web sites that have excellent material on the space sciences:

http://observe.ivv.nasa.gov/nasa/education/edu/edudocs/topic_space.html