Jul 23 1999
From The Space Library
During a spacewalk lasting nearly 6 hours, cosmonauts Viktor M. Afanasyev and Sergei V. Avdeyev searched for the source of a leak that was slowly causing pressure loss in Mir; they also attempted to install an antenna needed for an experiment. Both efforts failed. The leak, first detected in late June 1999, was "above the allowable limit." Although it posed no immediate threat to the space station, if the leak continued for three more months, the station would become uninhabitable.
After two delays, Space Shuttle Columbia launched on Mission STS-93 from Kennedy Space Center (KSC) in Cape Canaveral, Florida, under the command of Eileen M. Collins, NASA's first female Shuttle commander in 38 years of human spaceflight. Commander Collins's crew comprised Pilot Jeffrey S. Ashby and Mission Specialists Steven A. Hawley, Catherine G. Coleman, and Michel Tognini. Columbia carried on board the US$1.5 billion Chandra X-ray Observatory, previously known as the Advanced X-ray Astrophysics Facility (AXAF), as well as secondary payloads and experiments-the Southwest Ultraviolet Imaging System to capture ultraviolet imagery of the Earth, Moon, Mercury, Venus, and Jupiter; plant growth experiments; biological cell-culture studies; and the Treadmill Vibration Information System and High Definition Television System, which the crew planned to test. NASA had scrubbed both of the Shuttle's earlier launch attempts late in the countdown, halting the 20 July launch 6 seconds before blastoff because of a technical malfunction and the 22 July launch because of stormy weather. The U.S. Air Force and the Boeing Company postponed a commercial launch to permit NASA a third chance to deliver Chandra into orbit. However, the Shuttle continued to have problems. During the 8-minute climb into outer space, a 0.5-second-long short circuit shut down computers controlling two of the Shuttle's three main engines. Furthermore, Columbia was 4,000 pounds (1,800 kilograms) short of liquid oxygen fuel in its external fuel tank, leaving the craft in orbit 7 miles (11 kilometers) lower than planned. Fuel carried aboard the orbiter made up the shortfall. Seven hours into the flight, the crew deployed Chandra into orbit, accomplishing its primary mission.
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