Jun 2 1998
From The Space Library
Space Shuttle Discovery Mission STS-91 launched on schedule from Kennedy Space Center (KSC) in Cape Canaveral, Florida, despite problems with the automatic steering system on Mir. The Shuttle's mission was to retrieve the seventh and last American to live aboard Mir. The day's temperature reached 97°F (36°C) during the countdown, making it the "hottest launch day anyone could remember." The mood of the launch was tense, because NASA had never tested the new lightweight fuel tank during flight. According to NASA officials, the new tank worked well. Among the crew members aboard Discovery was Valery V. Ryumin, veteran cosmonaut and chief of the Russian operations in the Shuttle-Mir program. The Russian Space Agency had selected Ryumin to inspect Mir, so that Russian officials could make an informed decision regarding how long cosmonauts could safely continue to inhabit the space station. Other crew members included Commander Charles J. Precourt; Pilot Dominic L. P. Gorie; and Mission Specialists [[Wendy B. Lawrence], Franklin R. Chang-Diaz, and Janet L. Kavandi. For the first time, the Shuttle carried the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer (AMS), designed to search for dark and missing matter (antimatter) in the universe.
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