STS-58
Encyclopedia
STS-58 shuttle mission of Space Shuttle
Columbia
launched from Kennedy Space Center
, Florida, on 18 October 1993. It was also the last time Columbia would land at Edwards Air Force Base.
s held in 24 cages), along with data collected on the SLS-1 mission in June 1991, will provide the most detailed and interrelated physiological measurements acquired in the space environment since the Skylab
program in 1973 and 1974.
Crew members conducted experiments aimed at understanding bone tissue loss and the effects of microgravity on sensory perception. Two neurovestibular experiments investigating space motion sickness and perception changes were performed on the 2nd day as well. Astronauts Lucid and Fettman wore a headset, called an Accelerometer recording Unit, designed to continually record head movements throughout the day.
Only one minor issue came up on Tuesday, 19 October 1993 associated with a circuit breaker that tripped, cutting off power temporarily to one of the rodent cages in the module. Flight controllers in Houston reported it was not caused by a short in the electrical system and the breaker was reset, restoring power to the cage.
McArthur and Blaha began using the Lower Body Negative Pressure device on flight day 3, which is being tested as a countermeasure for the detrimental effects of microgravity. All three flight crew members will collect urine and saliva samples and keep logs of their exercise and food and fluid intake as part of the Energy Utilization detailed supplementary objective. DSO 612 looks at the nutritial and energy requirements of crew members on long-duration space flights and the relationship between fluid and food consumption.
On Wednesday, 20 October, though the space toilet is working fine, the crew detected a slight leak around the filter door before going to bed. They removed the filter and cleaned up about a teaspoon of water—much less than had been expected. As a precaution, a secondary fan separator unit was used to separate fluid from the air before cycling the air back into the cabin through the filter.
On Thursday, 21 October, Payload Commander Rhea Seddon, Mission Specialists Shannon Lucid
and David Wolf and Payload Specialist
Martin Fettman collected additional blood and urine samples for the series of metabolic experiments. Some of the samples will follow-up on the calcium absorption experiment performed yesterday. The experiment, sponsored by Dr. C.D. Arnaud of the University of California at San Francisco, studies the mechanisms of how calcium is maintained and used in bone metabolism in space. Based on preliminary results from the 1991 SLS-1 mission, Dr. Arnaud believes the decrease in bone density is due to increased bone breakdown that is not compensated for by a subsequent increase in bone formation.
On Friday, 22 October 1993, using the on-board ham radio called SAREX for Shuttle Amateur Radio Experiment, Blaha and Searfoss contacted school children at the Sycamore Middle School in Pleasant View
, Tennessee, and Gardendale Elementary in Pasadena
, Texas.
The Standard Interface Rack, or SIR, was tested today by Searfoss to demonstrate that equipment can be removed from one rack location and reintegrated into another by a single crew member during orbital operations while maintaining reliable mechanical, data and power interfaces.
Another new test flying aboard Columbia is a laptop computer simulator that is being flown to see if it will qualify as a tool for helping the mission commander and pilot maintain their proficiency for approach and landing during longer duration Space Shuttle
flights. The laptop is controlled using a joy stick hand controller similar to the one used to fly the orbiter in the final minutes before landing.
On Saturday, the payload crew members will devote much of their time to metabolic studies of the 48 rodents on board the Spacelab science workshop. Payload commander Rhea Seddon, and crewmates David Wolf, Shannon Lucid and veterinarian Marty Fettman are scheduled to draw blood from the tails of some of the rodents, then inject a special isotope into the rodents to measure the volume of their plasma. Another blood draw will follow, to measure how weightlessness may be affecting the red blood cell count of the animals.
After several ham radio contacts around the country and work in a vacuum bag designed to ease the body's readaptation to Earth's environment, the orbiter crew made up of Commander John Blaha, Pilot Richard Searfoss and Mission Specialist William McArthur
oversaw a short firing of one of the orbital maneuvering system engines to drop the low end of Columbia's orbit from 150 to 142 nautical miles (278 to 263 kilometres (163.4 mi)) to increase the landing opportunities should the mission be extended for weather or a system problem that would keep the crew in orbit two extra days.
On Wednesday, 27 October 1993, Pilot Rick Searfoss put Columbia through some maneuvers as part of the Orbital Acceleration Research Experiment. The main goal of the experiment is to accurately measure the aerodynamic forces that act on the shuttle in orbit and during the early stages of entry. The information will be useful to scientists and engineers planning future Spacelab microgravity research flights in which experiments will need a quiet, motion- free environment to produce the best possible data.
On Thursday, 28 October 1993, After enjoying a half a day off, the astronauts aboard Columbia continued to collect scientific data on how humans and animals adapt to the absence of Earth's gravity.
Payload Commander Rhea Seddon sent down a special message to her husband, Astronaut Office Chief Robert L. Gibson
when she surpassed his total of 632 hours, 56 minutes in space. "He's still a really good guy, I still love him a lot, but I've got more hours in space than he does, so there!" she teased. Seddon acknowledged, however, that he has more launches and landings, having flown four times to her three.
Pilot Rick Searfoss took time out from snapping some infrared photography of the wildfires burning in southern California to say that the crew's thoughts are with the firefighters working to quell the flames and the residents whose homes are being threatened. He said he hoped the fires would be brought under control soon, and added that the photographs he was taking will be among some 4,000 frames that will be returned to Earth for meteorologists, geologists, ecologists and archeologists to study after the flight.
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...
Columbia
Space Shuttle Columbia
Space Shuttle Columbia was the first spaceworthy Space Shuttle in NASA's orbital fleet. First launched on the STS-1 mission, the first of the Space Shuttle program, it completed 27 missions before being destroyed during re-entry on February 1, 2003 near the end of its 28th, STS-107. All seven crew...
launched from 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...
, Florida, on 18 October 1993. It was also the last time Columbia would land at Edwards Air Force Base.
Crew
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 landing with payload: 103146 kilograms (227,398 lb)
- Payload: 11803 kilograms (26,021.2 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"...
: 284 kilometres (176.5 mi) - Apogee: 294 kilometres (182.7 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...
: 39.0° - 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...
: 90.3 min
Mission highlights
STS-58 was a 1993 shuttle mission dedicated to life sciences research. Columbia’s crew performed a series of experiments to gain knowledge on how the human body adapts to the weightless environment of space. Experiments focused on cardiovascular, regulatory, neurovestibular and musculoskeletal systems of the body. The experiments performed on Columbia’s crew and on laboratory animals (48 ratRat
Rats are various medium-sized, long-tailed rodents of the superfamily Muroidea. "True rats" are members of the genus Rattus, the most important of which to humans are the black rat, Rattus rattus, and the brown rat, Rattus norvegicus...
s held in 24 cages), along with data collected on the SLS-1 mission in June 1991, will provide the most detailed and interrelated physiological measurements acquired in the space environment since the Skylab
Skylab
Skylab was a space station launched and operated by NASA, the space agency of the United States. Skylab orbited the Earth from 1973 to 1979, and included a workshop, a solar observatory, and other systems. It was launched unmanned by a modified Saturn V rocket, with a mass of...
program in 1973 and 1974.
Crew members conducted experiments aimed at understanding bone tissue loss and the effects of microgravity on sensory perception. Two neurovestibular experiments investigating space motion sickness and perception changes were performed on the 2nd day as well. Astronauts Lucid and Fettman wore a headset, called an Accelerometer recording Unit, designed to continually record head movements throughout the day.
Only one minor issue came up on Tuesday, 19 October 1993 associated with a circuit breaker that tripped, cutting off power temporarily to one of the rodent cages in the module. Flight controllers in Houston reported it was not caused by a short in the electrical system and the breaker was reset, restoring power to the cage.
McArthur and Blaha began using the Lower Body Negative Pressure device on flight day 3, which is being tested as a countermeasure for the detrimental effects of microgravity. All three flight crew members will collect urine and saliva samples and keep logs of their exercise and food and fluid intake as part of the Energy Utilization detailed supplementary objective. DSO 612 looks at the nutritial and energy requirements of crew members on long-duration space flights and the relationship between fluid and food consumption.
On Wednesday, 20 October, though the space toilet is working fine, the crew detected a slight leak around the filter door before going to bed. They removed the filter and cleaned up about a teaspoon of water—much less than had been expected. As a precaution, a secondary fan separator unit was used to separate fluid from the air before cycling the air back into the cabin through the filter.
On Thursday, 21 October, Payload Commander Rhea Seddon, Mission Specialists Shannon Lucid
Shannon Lucid
Shannon Matilda Wells Lucid is an American biochemist and a NASA astronaut. At one time, she held the record for the longest duration stay in space by an American, as well as by a woman...
and David Wolf and Payload Specialist
Payload Specialist
A Payload Specialist ' was an individual selected and trained by commercial or research organizations for flights of a specific payload on a NASA Space Shuttle mission...
Martin Fettman collected additional blood and urine samples for the series of metabolic experiments. Some of the samples will follow-up on the calcium absorption experiment performed yesterday. The experiment, sponsored by Dr. C.D. Arnaud of the University of California at San Francisco, studies the mechanisms of how calcium is maintained and used in bone metabolism in space. Based on preliminary results from the 1991 SLS-1 mission, Dr. Arnaud believes the decrease in bone density is due to increased bone breakdown that is not compensated for by a subsequent increase in bone formation.
On Friday, 22 October 1993, using the on-board ham radio called SAREX for Shuttle Amateur Radio Experiment, Blaha and Searfoss contacted school children at the Sycamore Middle School in Pleasant View
Pleasant View, Tennessee
Pleasant View is a city in Cheatham County, Tennessee, United States. The population was 2,934 at the 2000 census.-Geography:Pleasant View is located at ....
, Tennessee, and Gardendale Elementary in Pasadena
Pasadena, Texas
Pasadena is a city in the U.S. state of Texas within the metropolitan area. It is the second-largest city in Harris County, 17th-largest in Texas, and 162nd largest in the United States. The area was founded in 1893 by John H. Burnett of Galveston....
, Texas.
The Standard Interface Rack, or SIR, was tested today by Searfoss to demonstrate that equipment can be removed from one rack location and reintegrated into another by a single crew member during orbital operations while maintaining reliable mechanical, data and power interfaces.
Another new test flying aboard Columbia is a laptop computer simulator that is being flown to see if it will qualify as a tool for helping the mission commander and pilot maintain their proficiency for approach and landing during longer duration Space Shuttle
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...
flights. The laptop is controlled using a joy stick hand controller similar to the one used to fly the orbiter in the final minutes before landing.
On Saturday, the payload crew members will devote much of their time to metabolic studies of the 48 rodents on board the Spacelab science workshop. Payload commander Rhea Seddon, and crewmates David Wolf, Shannon Lucid and veterinarian Marty Fettman are scheduled to draw blood from the tails of some of the rodents, then inject a special isotope into the rodents to measure the volume of their plasma. Another blood draw will follow, to measure how weightlessness may be affecting the red blood cell count of the animals.
After several ham radio contacts around the country and work in a vacuum bag designed to ease the body's readaptation to Earth's environment, the orbiter crew made up of Commander John Blaha, Pilot Richard Searfoss and Mission Specialist William McArthur
William S. McArthur
William Surles McArthur, Jr. is a retired U.S. Army Colonel, a NASA astronaut, and a veteran of three space shuttle missions and one expedition to the International Space Station via the Russian Soyuz capsule.-Army career:...
oversaw a short firing of one of the orbital maneuvering system engines to drop the low end of Columbia's orbit from 150 to 142 nautical miles (278 to 263 kilometres (163.4 mi)) to increase the landing opportunities should the mission be extended for weather or a system problem that would keep the crew in orbit two extra days.
On Wednesday, 27 October 1993, Pilot Rick Searfoss put Columbia through some maneuvers as part of the Orbital Acceleration Research Experiment. The main goal of the experiment is to accurately measure the aerodynamic forces that act on the shuttle in orbit and during the early stages of entry. The information will be useful to scientists and engineers planning future Spacelab microgravity research flights in which experiments will need a quiet, motion- free environment to produce the best possible data.
On Thursday, 28 October 1993, After enjoying a half a day off, the astronauts aboard Columbia continued to collect scientific data on how humans and animals adapt to the absence of Earth's gravity.
Payload Commander Rhea Seddon sent down a special message to her husband, Astronaut Office Chief Robert L. Gibson
Robert L. Gibson
Robert Lee "Hoot" Gibson is a retired Captain and Naval Aviator in the United States Navy and a retired NASA astronaut.-Personal:...
when she surpassed his total of 632 hours, 56 minutes in space. "He's still a really good guy, I still love him a lot, but I've got more hours in space than he does, so there!" she teased. Seddon acknowledged, however, that he has more launches and landings, having flown four times to her three.
Pilot Rick Searfoss took time out from snapping some infrared photography of the wildfires burning in southern California to say that the crew's thoughts are with the firefighters working to quell the flames and the residents whose homes are being threatened. He said he hoped the fires would be brought under control soon, and added that the photographs he was taking will be among some 4,000 frames that will be returned to Earth for meteorologists, geologists, ecologists and archeologists to study after the flight.
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