Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!lll-winken!ames!yee
From: yee@ames.arc.nasa.gov (Peter E. Yee)
Newsgroups: sci.space.shuttle
Subject: NASA selects payload specialists for Spacelab mission (Forwarded)
Message-ID: <20600@ames.arc.nasa.gov>
Date: 12 Jan 89 22:31:31 GMT
Reply-To: yee@ames.arc.nasa.gov (Peter E. Yee)
Organization: NASA Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, CA
Lines: 72

Charles Redmond
Headquarters, Washington, D.C.                  January 11, 1989


RELEASE:  89-4

NASA SELECTS PAYLOAD SPECIALISTS FOR SPACELAB MISSION


     NASA today announced that it has approved the Investigator 
Working Group recommendation of Dr. Ulf D. Merbold, European 
Space Agency (ESA) and Dr. Roger K. Crouch, NASA, as candidate 
payload specialists for materials sciences experiments on the 
International Microgravity Laboratory (IML) -1 mission aboard the 
Shuttle Columbia in April 1991.

     NASA also announced that it has extended to the government 
of Canada through the Ministry of State (Science and Technology) 
an invitation to nominate two candidate payload specialists for 
the life sciences experiments on the IML-1 mission.  Canada has 
accepted this invitation and nominated Dr. Roberta L. Bondar and 
Dr. Kenneth Money for the mission.

     After the initial training period, NASA will designate, in 
consultation with ESA, a prime and a backup payload specialist 
for the materials sciences portion of the IML-1 mission and will 
also designate, in consultation with Canada, a prime and backup 
payload specialist for the life sciences portion.

     IML-1 is the first of a series of microgravity 
investigations using the Spacelab module.  It will focus on 
materials and life sciences, two disciplines needing access to a 
laboratory in reduced gravity.  IML-1 will use the Spacelab long 
module and is a dedicated microgravity mission.

     The investigations will use five life sciences experiment 
facilities, designed to be used and flown again - biorack, 
protein crystal growth facilities, gravitational plant physiology 
facility, microgravity vestibular investigations and space 
physiology experiments; and three materials facilities - fluid 
experiment system, vapor crystal growth system, mercury-iodide 
crystal growth system and the critical point facility.  These 
reusable facilities have been built by U.S., European, Canadian 
and Japanese investigators and organizations for reflight aboard 
the NASA-ESA Spacelab system.

     In addition to the experiments which require the reusable 
facilities, three other life science and three other materials 
science experiments with unique hardware will fly aboard IML-1.

     The IML series are designed to fly at 17- to 25-month 
intervals, enabling investigators to analyse and understand the 
results of flight experiments and use that knowledge to design 
additional experiments.

     Columbia will fly in a 160 (nautical) mile-high 28.5 degree 
orbit.  Mission duration is 9 days and the crew will consist of 
two payload specialists and five additional astronaut/mission 
specialists.  The orbiter will fly in a tail-down attitude called 
"gravity gradient" thereby producing the least gravitational 
disturbances on the Spacelab during the mission flight duration.

     The IML series is intended as an ongoing international 
research program in materials and life sciences in a microgravity 
environment.  The program is managed by NASA's Office of Space 
Science and Applications' Flight Systems Division, Washington, 
D.C.  Sterling Smith is program manager and Dr. Ron White, Life 
Sciences Division, is program scientist.

     Mission manager is Robert McBrayer and mission scientist is 
Dr. Robert Snyder, both from the Marshall Space Flight Center, 
Huntsville, Ala.