STS-101

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"The new star on our horizon, the International Space Station, represents a global partnership of 16 nations. This partnership – based on the highest ideals of our space program - will enable the long-term exploration of space and provide benefits to people across the Earth.

The completed Space Station will include six laboratories and provide more space for research than any spacecraft ever built. It will also provide a temporary home to crews of up to seven astronauts, who will inhabit the Station in stints of three to six months.

More than 40 space flights and multiple space vehicles will deliver the various ISS components to Earth orbit. Assembly of the more than 100 components will require a combination of human spacewalks and robot technologies."

.  .

"Three flights have helped usher in the ISS era. The first flight was a Russian Proton rocket that lifted off in November 1998 to place on orbit the Zarya module.

In early December of that same year, the STS-88 mission saw the Shuttle Endeavour crew attach the Unity module to Zarya, initiating the first ISS assembly sequence.

The third ISS mission was STS-96 in June 1999 with Discovery supplying the two modules with tools and cranes and other supplies.

Now we are preparing to launch STS-101."

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STS-101, the second Shuttle docking with the Space Station, will set the stage for the arrival of the Russian-made Zvezda service module this summer. The original mission objectives for STS-101 were modified in January when NASA decided the mission needed to fly before, instead of after, the arrival of Zvezda. A number of the original STS-101 mission objectives have been distributed between STS-101 and the added mission, STS-106, which will be launched no earlier than August.

The seven-member STS-101 crew – pictured here in front of the double Spacehab cargo carrier - will perform some maintenance tasks on board the Station and deliver a variety of logistics and supplies from Spacehab to the orbiting outpost.

Veteran Shuttle Commander James Halsell, pictured at right on the front row, was originally assigned to the STS-101 mission. He will continue in that role. In addition, Pilot Scott Horowitz and mission specialists Mary Ellen Weber and Jeffrey Williams - the three astronauts pictured at left - will remain as part of the STS-101 crew.

Crew members added for the revised mission are, from left, mission specialists James Voss, Yuri Usachev and Susan Helms. These crew members are also scheduled to serve as the second resident International Space Station crew. Halsell describes the revised mission this way:

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"Well, the new STS-101 is a mission designed basically to extend the life of the International Space Station that’s currently on orbit to make sure that it can await the arrival of the Russian Service Module later on this year. We do have some degradation in some of the mechanical and electrical systems on board the Station that we need to go up and take care of, so that the life of the Station is assured for the amount of time required for the next module to come on board. So that, in a nutshell, is our mission."

After docking, Voss will join Williams in the mission’s one spacewalk, also called an extravehicular activity or EVA. During the six-plus hour spacewalk, the "Strela" cargo boom will be installed on the outside of Zarya and a faulty radio antenna on Unity will be replaced.

Maintenance tasks will include replacing up to four batteries and associated electronics in the Zarya module. Four cooling fans, three fire extinguishers, 10 smoke detectors and an on-board computer will also be installed on Zarya. In addition, a suspect radio frequency power distribution box will be replaced on Unity. Williams is pictured here training with equipment for the mission.

About one ton of equipment from a double Spacehab module will be transferred into Unity and Zarya. The equipment will be used by the first long-term inhabitants of the Station later this year. Logistical items to be delivered include personal clothing and hygiene gear, medical and exercise equipment, computer equipment and printers, and hardware for the Station’s communication system. Here crew members familiarize themselves with some of that equipment during the Crew Equipment Interface Test at Kennedy Space Center.

Now let’s take a closer look at the STS-101 crew. The Commander of the mission, James Halsell Jr., is a veteran of four space flights and has logged over 1,021 hours in space. The U.S. Air Force Colonel was Pilot on STS-65 and STS-74 and was Mission Commander on STS-83 and STS-94. From February-August 1998, he served as NASA Director of Operations at the Yuri Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center, Star City, Russia.

The Louisiana native graduated first in his test pilot school class and has performed test flights in F-4, F-16 and SR-71 aircraft. He has a bachelor of science degree in engineering from the United States Air Force Academy, a master of science degree in management from Troy University, and a master of science degree in space operations from the Air Force Institute of Technology. He became an astronaut in July 1991.

Scott Horowitz, Pilot for STS-101, has flown in that role on two other missions, STS-75 and STS-82. Here he is pictured during training at Johnson Space Center. A Lieutenant Colonel in the U.S. Air Force, Horowitz was born in Philadelphia, Penn., but considers Thousand Oaks, Calif., to be his hometown.

Horowitz has a bachelor of science degree in engineering from California State University at Northridge and master of science and doctorate degrees in aerospace engineering from Georgia Institute of Technology. He served as a research scientist in the aerospace industry and and taught at two universities. After joining the Air Force, he served as a T-38 instructor pilot and a test pilot for A-7s and T-38s. Horowitz began his astronaut training in August 1992. His desire to become an astronaut was ignited in childhood:

"Well, ever since I was a really small child, I’d been around airplanes and been interested in designing and building and flying airplanes. My dad took me flying when I was six years old, and, I’d been flying with him ever since, built model airplanes, and in school I really liked math and science, and loved reading about exploration and, you know, bush pilots and all those strange kinds of things. And then my sixth grade teacher actually wrote a note in my little annual at the end of the year and said: "To one of the future astronauts." And I thought: Hey, this is great: math, science, flying – it’s perfect for me! And that’s why I decided that I was going to be an astronaut."

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Mission Specialist Mary Ellen Weber has made one previous space flight, STS-70. She was born in Cleveland, Ohio, but Bedford Heights, Ohio, is her hometown.

Weber has a bachelor of science degree in chemical engineering from Purdue University and a Ph.D. in physical chemistry from the University of California at Berkeley. She worked in research and development in the computer chip industry before being selected for astronaut training in 1992. She’s pictured here during weightlessness training while testing a device for stabilizing herself when she operates the robotic arm aboard the Space Shuttle. Weber described her task as follows:

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"Well, for the spacewalk we use a robotic arm because we have to be able to get the crew members from one side of the Shuttle over to different areas on the Space Station stack itself. And without the use of gravity you can’t simply walk, you’ll have to have handholds. You’ve got to have paths so that you can translate across a great deal of equipment, sensitive equipment, etc., and it’s difficult to do.

However, we have this robotic arm out in the payload bay, and what it allows us to do is to pick up the different crew members, attach them to the end of the arm – in this case, for our flight it’ll be Jim Voss at the end of the arm – and I’ll be able to use this big robot to move him to all the different places that he needs to get to."

Mission Specialist James S. Voss is a veteran of three space flights. He flew as a mission specialist on STS-44 and STS-53 and was the payload commander on STS-69. Here he is pictured preparing for STS-69. The retired U.S. Army Colonel was born in Cordova, Ala., but considers Opelika, Ala., to be his home.

Voss has a bachelor of science degree in aerospace engineering from Auburn University and a master of science degree in aerospace engineering sciences from the University of Colorado in 1974. He has worked at the Johnson Space Center since November 1984 and was selected as an astronaut candidate by NASA in June 1987. Voss had this to say about his EVA:

"When Jeff and I go outside, we will be transferring over some things from the Space Shuttle onto the Station. One of the things is a crane – it’s called the Strela, it’s a Russian piece of hardware, it has an extendable boom that you can use for moving people or equipment around the Space Station. A piece of it is already up there.

" We’re bringing up the boom itself and extension to the boom. We’ll assemble pieces of it in the payload bay of the Space Shuttle, and then we will move it up to the Space Station, assemble it there, and then we’ll move the entire thing over to a new location where it’s kind of out of the way for future construction that’s going to happen."

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Mission Specialist Jeff Williams will be making his first space flight. The U.S. Army Lieutenant Colonel was born in Superior, Wis., but considers Winter, Wis., to be his hometown.

Williams has a bachelor of science degree in applied science and engineering from the U.S. Military Academy, a master of science degree in aeronautical engineering from the U.S. Naval Postgraduate School and a master of arts degree in national security and strategic studies from the U.S. Naval War College. Williams, who served as a test pilot, has logged approximately 2,000 hours in more than 50 different aircraft. He was selected for an Army assignment at Johnson Space Center in 1987 and for astronaut training by NASA in May 1996. After his spacewalk, he, like the other members of the crew, will begin transferring equipment and supplies from the Shuttle to the Station.

Video 7 (Williams)

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"Well there’s a whole spectrum of equipment and supplies, food, clothing, water, spare parts, tools, equipment, the whole spectrum of things that you might think of. The important part of the job will be not so much the contents of what we’re transferring, but, putting them in a precise configuration so that things can be found again. And there’s a lot of folks here on the ground planning that and managing that, and Jim has asked me to be responsible for the configuration of all that on the Station Side."

Mission Specialist Yuri V. Usachev is a cosmonaut for the Russian Aviation and Space Agency. On his two previous space flights and stays aboard Mir, he logged 376 days in space and performed six spacewalks. Here he is pictured aboard Mir with astronaut Shannon Lucid. This is his first Space Shuttle flight.

Usachev was born in Donetsk, Rostov on Don Region, Russia, and has a degree in engineering from Moscow Aviation Institute. Upon graduation, he went to work for Energia, participating in groups working with EVA training, future construction in space, public relations and ergonomics. He was chosen as a cosmonaut candidate in 1989. Usachev, like many other astronauts and cosmonauts, believes that seeing the Earth from space gives one a life-changing perspective:

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"For me, for example, after the first mission I change a lot of my point of view because it’s absolutely unusual and it’s a very good chance. I think that if any people have any chance to be just one or two orbit, they can change their point of view for all stuff around them."

Mission Specialist Susan J. Helms is a veteran of three space flights, STS-54, STS-64 and STS-78. A Lieutenant Colonel in the U.S. Air Force, Helms was born in Charlotte, N. C., but considers Portland, Oregon, to be her hometown.

Helms has a bachelor of science degree in aeronautical engineering from the U.S. Air Force Academy and a master of science degree in aeronautics and astronautics from Stanford University. As a flight test engineer, Helms has flown in 30 different types of U.S. and Canadian military aircraft. She became an astronaut in July 1991. She believes astronaut training will change because of International Space Station missions.

We have people in the increment corps that have been developing generic skills: skills on how to operate the robotics, skills on how to do EVAs, skills on how to work with in-flight maintenance, which would be to remove and repair or replace boxes inside any part of the Space Station modules."

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We hope you will enjoy witnessing the launch of Atlantis and the STS-101 mission, another step in the outfitting of the International Space Station. This cooperative venture of international partners is destined to expand our view of Earth and beyond.

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Curator:Katharine Hagood(katharine.hagood-1@ksc.nasa.gov)

A service of the NASA/Kennedy Space Center,

Roy D. Bridges, Jr., Director.

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