STS-91 Mission Specialist Wendy B. Lawrence (Cdr., USN) arrives at Kennedy Space Center's Shuttle Landing Facility aboard a T-38 jet. She is here to participate in the Terminal Countdown Demonstration Test (TCDT), a dress rehearsal for launch. The STS-91 launch is targeted for June 2 with a launch window opening around 6:10 p.m. EDT. The mission will conclude Phase I of the joint U.S.-Russian International Space Station Program. Although it will be the ninth Shuttle docking with the Russian Space Station Mir, it will be the first Mir docking for the Space Shuttle orbiter Discovery. Lawrence is making her third space flight and her second trip to Mir. The STS-91 mission will also be the first flight for the new Space Shuttle super lightweight external tank. The STS-91 flight crew also includes Mission Commander Charles Precourt; Pilot Dominic Gorie; and Mission Specialists Franklin Chang-Diaz, Ph.D.; Janet Kavandi, Ph.D; and Valery Ryumin, with the Russian Space Agency. Andrew Thomas, Ph.D., will be returning to Earth with the crew after living aboard Mir since January 25, 1998 KSC-98pc583
Summary
STS-91 Mission Specialist Wendy B. Lawrence (Cdr., USN) arrives at Kennedy Space Center's Shuttle Landing Facility aboard a T-38 jet. She is here to participate in the Terminal Countdown Demonstration Test (TCDT), a dress rehearsal for launch. The STS-91 launch is targeted for June 2 with a launch window opening around 6:10 p.m. EDT. The mission will conclude Phase I of the joint U.S.-Russian International Space Station Program. Although it will be the ninth Shuttle docking with the Russian Space Station Mir, it will be the first Mir docking for the Space Shuttle orbiter Discovery. Lawrence is making her third space flight and her second trip to Mir. The STS-91 mission will also be the first flight for the new Space Shuttle super lightweight external tank. The STS-91 flight crew also includes Mission Commander Charles Precourt; Pilot Dominic Gorie; and Mission Specialists Franklin Chang-Diaz, Ph.D.; Janet Kavandi, Ph.D; and Valery Ryumin, with the Russian Space Agency. Andrew Thomas, Ph.D., will be returning to Earth with the crew after living aboard Mir since January 25, 1998
The Space Shuttle program was the United States government's manned launch vehicle program from 1981 to 2011, administered by NASA and officially beginning in 1972. The Space Shuttle system—composed of an orbiter launched with two reusable solid rocket boosters and a disposable external fuel tank— carried up to eight astronauts and up to 50,000 lb (23,000 kg) of payload into low Earth orbit (LEO). When its mission was complete, the orbiter would re-enter the Earth's atmosphere and lands as a glider. Although the concept had been explored since the late 1960s, the program formally commenced in 1972 and was the focus of NASA's manned operations after the final Apollo and Skylab flights in the mid-1970s. It started with the launch of the first shuttle Columbia on April 12, 1981, on STS-1. and finished with its last mission, STS-135 flown by Atlantis, in July 2011.
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