STS-91 Mission Specialist and Russian cosmonaut Valery Victorovitch Ryumin is outfitted with his ascent/reentry flight suit and helmet by two suit technicians in the Operations and Checkout (O&C) Building. The final suit fitting and checkout takes place prior to the crew walkout and transport to Launch Pad 39A. He has been director of the Russian Shuttle-Mir program and flight director for the Salyut-7 and Mir space stations and is a veteran of three space flights with a total of 362 days in space. This will be Ryumin’s first visit to Mir. However, his experience with Russian spacecraft in orbit will prove extremely valuable as he helps the crew with Mir equipment transfer operations. He will also be assessing the condition of the station for the Russian space program. 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 return to Earth as a STS91 crew member after living more than four months aboard Mir KSC-98pc677
Summary
STS-91 Mission Specialist and Russian cosmonaut Valery Victorovitch Ryumin is outfitted with his ascent/reentry flight suit and helmet by two suit technicians in the Operations and Checkout (O&C) Building. The final suit fitting and checkout takes place prior to the crew walkout and transport to Launch Pad 39A. He has been director of the Russian Shuttle-Mir program and flight director for the Salyut-7 and Mir space stations and is a veteran of three space flights with a total of 362 days in space. This will be Ryumin’s first visit to Mir. However, his experience with Russian spacecraft in orbit will prove extremely valuable as he helps the crew with Mir equipment transfer operations. He will also be assessing the condition of the station for the Russian space program. 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 return to Earth as a STS91 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.
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