Nov 19 1997
From The Space Library
Space Shuttle Columbia lifted off from Earth on Mission STS-87 with great fanfare, executing an unusual 180° roll 6 minutes into the 8%-minute flight, a maneuver planned to put the Shuttle in radio contact with communication satellites. The launch itself took place at the "exact moment on the exact day as planned" for the sixth consecutive mission. The six-person crew included Takao Doi, a Japanese astronaut who planned to make his country's first spacewalk; Kalpana Chawla, the first Indian-born woman to travel into space; Leonid K. Kadenyuk, the first Ukrainian to fly on a U.S. Shuttle; and U.S. astronauts Kevin R. Kregel, [[Steven W. Lindsey], and Winston E. Scott. The crew planned to conduct a spacewalk to test instruments and procedures for the ISS. The Shuttle also carried the U.S. Microgravity Payload-4, which the astronauts planned to use to test the responses to conditions in space of a variety of materials and liquids.
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