STS-91 Mission Commander Charles J. Precourt holds his arms up and smiles during the final checkout of his flight suit in the Operations and Checkout (O&C) Building. The test is conducted prior to the crew walkout and transport to Launch Pad 39A. He is on his fourth space flight and third trip to Mir. Precourt is a colonel in the Air Force and has more than 6,500 hours of flight experience in more than 50 types of civil and military aircraft. He will have overall responsibility for the mission and will perform the final docking with the Russian space station. STS-91 is scheduled to be launched on June 2 with a launch window opening around 6:10 p.m. EDT. The mission will feature the ninth and final Shuttle docking with the Russian space station Mir, the first Mir docking for Discovery, the first on-orbit test of the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer (AMS), and the first flight of the new Space Shuttle super lightweight external tank. Astronaut Andrew S. W. Thomas will be returning to Earth as a STS-91 crew member after living more than four months aboard Mir KSC-98pc674
Summary
STS-91 Mission Commander Charles J. Precourt holds his arms up and smiles during the final checkout of his flight suit in the Operations and Checkout (O&C) Building. The test is conducted prior to the crew walkout and transport to Launch Pad 39A. He is on his fourth space flight and third trip to Mir. Precourt is a colonel in the Air Force and has more than 6,500 hours of flight experience in more than 50 types of civil and military aircraft. He will have overall responsibility for the mission and will perform the final docking with the Russian space station. STS-91 is scheduled to be launched on June 2 with a launch window opening around 6:10 p.m. EDT. The mission will feature the ninth and final Shuttle docking with the Russian space station Mir, the first Mir docking for Discovery, the first on-orbit test of the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer (AMS), and the first flight of the new Space Shuttle super lightweight external tank. Astronaut Andrew S. W. Thomas will be returning to Earth as a STS-91 crew member after living more than four months aboard Mir
The Space Shuttle program was the United States government's manned launch vehicle program from 1981 to 2011, administered by NASA and officially beginning in 1972. The Space Shuttle system—composed of an orbiter launched with two reusable solid rocket boosters and a disposable external fuel tank— carried up to eight astronauts and up to 50,000 lb (23,000 kg) of payload into low Earth orbit (LEO). When its mission was complete, the orbiter would re-enter the Earth's atmosphere and lands as a glider. Although the concept had been explored since the late 1960s, the program formally commenced in 1972 and was the focus of NASA's manned operations after the final Apollo and Skylab flights in the mid-1970s. It started with the launch of the first shuttle Columbia on April 12, 1981, on STS-1. and finished with its last mission, STS-135 flown by Atlantis, in July 2011.