yee@trident.arc.nasa.gov (Peter E. Yee) (04/06/89)
Barbara Selby
Headquarters, Washington, D.C. April 5, 1989
Jeffrey Carr
Johnson Space Center, Houston
RELEASE: 89-44
ASTRONAUTS NAMED FOR TWO SPACE SCIENCE MISSIONS
Astronaut crew members have been named for two scientific
Space Shuttle missions scheduled for launch in 1990.
USAF Col. Steven R. Nagel will be commander of the Space
Shuttle Discovery on mission STS-37. USMC Lt. Col. Kenneth
D. Cameron will serve as pilot. Mission specialists are USAF
Lt. Col. Jerry L. Ross, Jay Apt, Ph.D., and Linda M. Godwin,
Ph.D.
Following Discovery's launch next April, the crew will
deploy the Gamma Ray Observatory (GRO) from the payload bay using
the Shuttle's robot arm. The GRO will explore gamma ray sources
throughout the universe, studying the origin of our own galaxy
and others, and examining quasars, pulsars and supernova remnants
from an altitude of 243 miles above the Earth.
USMC Col. Bryan D. O'Connor will be commander of STS-40, the
space and life sciences-dedicated mission, SLS-1. Serving as
pilot aboard the Space Shuttle Columbia will be USAF Col. John
E. Blaha. Also named as a mission specialist is Tamara E.
Jernigan.
SLS-1 mission specialists M. Rhea Seddon, M.D., and James
P. Bagian, M.D., and payload specialists F. Drew Gaffney, Ph.D.,
and Robert W. Phillips, Ph.D., were named previously.
Inside a pressurized laboratory fixed in Columbia's payload
bay, the SLS-1 crew will conduct more than two dozen life
sciences investigations in the microgravity environment. Launch
Nagel has flown twice in space -- as a mission specialist on
Shuttle mission STS 51-G in June 1985 and as pilot on STS 61-A in
October 1985. He was born Oct. 27, 1946, in Canton, Ill.
Cameron will make his first space flight. He was born
Nov. 29, 1949, in Cleveland, Ohio.
Ross has previously flown on two Shuttle missions, STS 61-B
in November 1985 and STS-27 last December. Ross was born Jan.
20, 1948, in Crown Point, Ind.
Apt will make his first space flight. He was born April 28,
1949, in Springfield, Mass., but considers Pittsburgh, Pa., to be
his hometown.
Godwin also will make her first flight in space. She was
born July 2, 1952, in Cape Girardeau, Mo.
O'Connor has flown previously as pilot on STS 61-B in
November 1985. After the Challenger accident, he was named
chairman of NASA's Space Flight Safety Panel. O'Connor was born
Sept. 6, 1946, in Orange, Calif., but considers Twentynine Palms,
Calif., to be his hometown.
Blaha made his first space flight last month as pilot of
STS-29. He was born Aug. 26, 1942, in San Antonio, Texas.
Jernigan will make her first flight in space. She was born
May 7, 1959, in Chattanooga, Tenn., but considers Santa Fe
Springs, Calif., to be her hometown.