BRIEFINGS SET FOR FINAL SHUTTLE MISSION OF 1997

A series of briefings on the upcoming flight of Space Shuttle Columbia on Mission STS-87 will be held on Wednesday, Nov. 12, 1997. The STS-87 mission, the eighth and final Shuttle flight of the year, will include observations of the Sun's outer atmospheric layers, experiments to study how the weightless environment of space affects various physical processes and a spacewalk to rehearse future International Space Station operations.

The briefings will begin on Nov. 12 at 9 a.m. EST (all times listed are EST) with a Mission Overview briefing conducted by STS- 87 Lead Flight Director Bill Reeves at the Johnson Space Center (JSC), Houston, TX. At 10 a.m., a United States Microgravity Payload briefing will originate from NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC), Huntsville, AL. NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC), Greenbelt, MD, will host a Spartan payload briefing at 11 a.m. followed by the daily NASA Video File at noon.

The briefings will then resume from the Kennedy Space Center (KSC), FL, at 12:30 p.m. with a presentation on the Collaborative Ukrainian Experiment (CUE). Activities and objectives associated with a planned spacewalk on the sixth day of the mission will be discussed at a briefing from JSC starting at 1:30 p.m. The briefings will return to GSFC at 3 p.m. for a presentation of the Hitchhiker and Get Away Special experiments that will fly in the cargo bay of Columbia. The briefings will wrap up with the STS-87 Crew News Conference at 5 p.m.

All of the STS-87 briefings will be carried on NASA Television which is available through the GE2 satellite system, located on Transponder 9C, at 85 degrees West longitude, frequency 3880.0 MHz, audio 6.8 MHz.

9 a.m. - 10 a.m.: STS-87 MISSION OVERVIEW (JSC)

Bill Reeves, STS-87 Lead Flight Director

10 a.m.-11 a.m.: USMP-4 (MSFC)

Joel Kearns, Microgravity Research Program Manager

Sherwood Anderson, USMP-4 Mission Manager

Dr. Peter Curreri, USMP-4 Mission Scientist

Dr. Martin (Marty) Glicksman, Principal Investigator, Isothermal Dendritic Growth Experiment (IDGE), Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, NY

Dr. Doru Stefanescu, Principal Investigator, Particle Engulfment and Pushing by a Solid/Liquid Interface PEP (MGBX), Univ. of Alabama, Tuscaloosa

11 a.m. - noon: SPARTAN (GSFC)

Craig Tooley - Spartan 201-04 Mission Manager, GSFC

Dr. Richard Fisher - White Light Coronograph, GSFC

Dr. Leonard Strachan, Ultraviolet Coronal Spectrometer, Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory, Cambridge, MA

Gene Beam - Project Manager, Auto Rendezvous & Docking Experiment, MSFC

12 noon: NASA Video File (HQ)

12:30 p.m. - 1:30 p.m.: Collaborative Ukrainian Experiment (CUE) (KSC)

Dr. Bill Knott, CUE Mission Scientist, KSC

Cindy Martin, CUE Mission Manager

1:30 p.m. - 3 p.m.: EVA / AERCam / SPRINT Briefing (JSC)

Mike Hess, STS-87 EVA Officer

Cliff Hess, AERCam Project

3 p.m. - 3:45 p.m.: STS-87 GAS/HITCHIKER PAYLOADS (GSFC)

Tammy Brown, SOLSE Payload Manager, GSFC

Lee Shiflett, Get Away Special Manager, GSFC

Dr. Ruthan Lewis, Hitchhiker Mission Manager, GSFC

5 p.m. - 6 p.m.: STS-87 Crew News Conference (JSC)

Kevin Kregel, Commander

Steve Lindsey, Pilot

Kalpana Chawla, Mission Specialist 1

Winston Scott, Mission Specialist 2

Takao Doi, Mission Specialist 3

Leonid Kadenyuk, Payload Specialist 1