yee@ames.arc.nasa.gov (Peter E. Yee) (01/13/89)
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.yee@trident.arc.nasa.gov (Peter E. Yee) (05/03/91)
Michael Braukus Headquarters, Washington, D.C. May 2, 1991 (Phone: 202/453-1549) David Drachlis Marshall Space Flight Center, Huntsville, Ala. (Phone: 205/544-0034) RELEASE: 91-66 NASA SELECTS PAYLOAD SPECIALISTS FOR SPACELAB MISSION The National Aeronautics and Space Administration today announced the selection of Dr. Lawrence J. DeLucas of the University of Alabama at Birmingham and Dr. Eugene H. Trinh of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., to fly as payload specialists on the first U.S. Microgravity Laboratory mission. USML-1 is a 13- day Spacelab mission scheduled for flight aboard the Space Shuttle in June 1992. Dr. DeLucas, 40, earned a doctorate of optometry in 1981 and a Ph.D in biochemistry in 1982 from the University of Alabama at Birmingham. He holds several positions at the university including Associate Director of the Center for Macromolecular Crystallography, Professor in the Department of Optometry and Adjunct Professor in the Laboratory of Medical Genetics. Dr. Trinh, of Culver City, Calif., earned a Ph.D in applied physics from Yale in 1978. He is a scientist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. The 40-year-old Trinh previously was an alternate payload specialist for Spacelab 3, a microgravity mission which flew aboard the Space Shuttle in 1985. As an alternate, he served as a back-up to the flight payload specialists and played a key role in the control center during the mission. For the first U.S. Microgravity Laboratory mission, NASA has designated Dr. Joseph Prahl of Case Western Reserve University,Cleveland, and Dr. Albert Sacco, Jr., of Worchester Polytechnic Institute, Mass., to serve as alternates to DeLucas and Trinh. During the mission, Trinh and DeLucas will conduct more than 30 scientific and technological investigations in materials, fluids and biological processes in the orbiting laboratory. They will be supported by Prahl and Sacco who will serve as key control team members in the Spacelab Mission Operations Control facility at the Marshall Space Flight Center, Huntsville, Ala. The U.S. Microgravity Laboratory series of Spacelab missions is being managed by the Marshall center.