STS-107

Video 1: KSC Center Director Message

Hello, and welcome! I’m Roy Bridges, Kennedy Space Center Director. I’d like to take a few minutes to tell you about STS-107, a 16-day science mission packed with experiments and research to help us learn more about ourselves, our bodies, our home planet and the universe using the unique zero gravity environment of low earth orbit.

Shuttle Columbia’s primary payload is the SPACEHAB Research Double Module, or RDM, which will make its debut on this mission. Most of the STS-107 experiments will be located in the RDM and in Columbia’s middeck. Also in the payload bay is the Fast Reaction Experiments Enabling Science, Technology, Applications and Research, or FREESTAR. Six experiments make up FREESTAR, including 11 research studies from schools across the U.S.

The seven-member crew of STS-107 will split into two alternating shifts in order to maintain a 24-hour-a-day schedule on orbit. They will stay busy with studies in the areas of astronaut health and safety, advanced technology development and earth and space sciences. The European Space Agency’s Advanced Respiratory Monitoring System consists of seven experiments to look for changes in the heart, lungs or metabolism. The Canadian Space Agency and German Space Agency are also participating in studies, as are students from schools in Australia, China, Israel, Japan, Liechtenstein and the U.S.

As you can see, some truly important work will take place during this mission. Thank you for joining us!
 

Photo 2: The STS-107 Crew in Pre-flight Training

The STS-107 crew members are shown here in front of the SPACEHAB Double Module as part of In-Flight Maintenance training. This will be the first space flight of the SPACEHAB Double Module, which includes a broad collection of experiments ranging from material science to life science.

Video 2: Husband

The STS-107 mission will be a science research mission. We’ll be up for 16 days. We’ve got seven crewmembers and we will be working dual shifts. So, we’ll be working around the clock, working on several different types of experiments that will be in the Orbiter mid-deck, back in the shuttle payload bay and also in the Spacehab Research Double Module. This is the first flight of the Research Double Module, and it’s been modified with a few extra components for air conditioning and data and power to be able to power additional experiments and get the data from the Spacehab to the Orbiter and then to the ground. We’ll be working on several different types of experiments while we’re up there doing some research on different things that folks have planned for this particular flight.
   

Photo 9: William McCool, Formal

William McCool, shown here, will serve as pilot. After completing two years of training and evaluation, he is qualified for flight assignment as a pilot. Initially assigned to the Computer Support Branch, McCool also served as Technical Assistant to the Director of Flight Crew Operations, and worked Shuttle cockpit upgrade issues for the Astronaut Office. STS-107 is McCool’s first space flight. He is part of the Blue Team.
 

Video 3: McCool

I think that the biggest concern I have about the long-duration mission is not so much the duration but the density of the whole mission. It’s very tightly choreographed and there are so many payloads. Each one, in terms of time, has interdependencies on the other one being done or partially being done. If there are any hiccups or delays, it’s just going to ripple through the timeline. The real test for the team on the ground and for us up on orbit will be how to react and reprioritize to make the experiments go as planned and achieve the objectives despite the hiccups.
  

Video 4: Anderson

When we first started training for this flight and we got our first briefings about the number of payloads and experiments that were going to be on this flight, I was really amazed. I was impressed. It was certainly evident that the scientific community had been waiting a long time for this flight, and they’d saved up a number of really good experiments. They’ve done an excellent job in patching all these experiments and integrating them into the 16-day mission. One of the hardest parts of preparing for this flight is really trying to get a handle on the variety of payloads and experiments. We’re just excited to be able to take them up there and, hopefully, bring back some of the best science we’ve had in years.
   

Video 5: Ramon

It’s a global community. We are today more and more in the 21st century. We are a global community, and when you get to science and especially space science, that’s the best tool and way of living like a global community. So, I think it is great to have this opportunity of having experiments out of the whole world, first of all, as scientists from out of the whole world, students out of the whole world. Of course the benefits are going to be shared by the humans in the world, and the whole science community in the world. So, I think it’s a great opportunity to express our way of life today in the 21st century.
   

Video 6: Brown

On this flight, all of us are not only operators, but we’re experiment subjects. We’re heavily involved in not only collecting the science, but we kind of are the science for parts of it. But being an astronaut is kind of a participatory event. If you put on a space suit and go outside and assemble the Space Station, you’re pretty well fully engaged and involved in that and you’re going to come back with a few sore spots and bruises from that event. We’re doing a little bit of different work here in that we’re having our blood drawn. We’re sitting on an ergometer (a stationary bicycle) and breathing while we’re being studied. So, it really doesn’t matter what job you have as an astronaut. You just climb right into it, and you’re right in the middle of it. As someone with a science background, I’m a physician, I think it’s pretty darn neat. I think it really feels like a great privilege to kind of jump in and be right in the middle of it. Whatever I can do to contribute to the science, to improve the science, I think is really great.

Video 7: Clark

I think that any time we interact with students, it's extremely important. Not just our mission and not just NASA. There are any number of people who volunteer helping our young people to further their education. Let's face it, they're the future of our country; the future of our world. They're the people that are going to solve the problems that we don't solve today. I think we can help them, to foster an interest in science and make them excited about what they're doing. The really wonderful thing about NASA and spaceflight is that it is exciting. At least, especially to outsiders, it's exciting. A lot of what we do while being exciting is also a lot of work and requires time and attention. Students who are selected to fly experiments on the shuttle remember that for the rest of their lives as something that they were able to participate in and be involved in. I think that's extremely important.
 

Photo 19: Kalpana Chawla, Formal

Mission Specialist Kalpana Chawla, shown here, was selected by NASA in December 1994. She was originally assigned as crew representative to work technical issues for the Astronaut Office EVA/Robotics and Computer Branches. Chawla was a mission specialist and prime robotic arm operator on STS-87. During her first mission, she traveled 6.5 million miles in 252 orbits of the Earth and logged 376 hours and 34 minutes in space. She is also working with the Red Team.
 

Video 8: Chawla

We are a dual-shift mission because the extent of science, the experiments we are carrying, is just very, very large. There is simply no way to carry out that kind of science with just one shift. You might say, if we have seven people on one shift, they could just divvy up the experiments and, hence, you should be able to do the same number of things. The issue is that on our orbiter, there are lots of attitude requirements. The orbiter should be in a certain attitude to do, for example, the ozone measurements, and in a different attitude to do, for example, the dust measurements. In a free-drift attitude, meaning that no jets should be firing and it’s just drifting, hence the word free drift, to do some of our very microgravity-sensitive experiments. For example, one of the combustion module experiments needs a very quiescent environment. So, because of these very extensive requirements on what sort of attitude the orbiter should be in, and what kind of microgravity environment is required, you sort of need to take advantage of the whole day. It really helps to use the crew much more efficiently by doing that.