May 27 1999
From The Space Library
Space Shuttle Discovery launched successfully from Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida, after a one-week delay and a six-month "launch drought." NASA had delayed the launch of Mission STS-96, scheduled for 20 May, after a violent thunderstorm earlier in the month damaged the Shuttle's external fuel tank, requiring repairs. The previous six months had been the longest period in NASA's history without any launches since the Challenger disaster, which grounded the Shuttle fleet for two and one-half years. However, problems with the Shuttle fleet had not caused the delay during recent months. Delays in the construction of a critical Russian-built component for the International Space Station (ISS), as well as ongoing problems with a grounded NASA x-ray telescope, had disrupted the launch schedule. Discovery's crew included Commander [[Kent V. Rominger], Pilot Rick D. Husband, and Mission Specialists Ellen Ochoa, Tamara E. Jernigan, Daniel T. Barry, Julie Payette, and Valery I. Tokarev. During the 10-day ISS Assembly Mission 2A.1, the crew planned to deliver supplies to the ISS; to repair U.S. and Russian equipment; to install mufflers that would reduce the noise of the Russian fans; and to conduct a spacewalk, attaching one crane and part of another to the outside of the station. STS-96 (ISS 2A.1) was the first mission to dock with the new ISS.
NASA released its first three-dimensional global map of Mars. The Mars Orbiter Laser Altimeter (MOLA), an instrument aboard NASA's Mars Global Surveyor, had generated the data for the high-resolution map, created from measurements gathered in 1998 and 1999. David E. Smith of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, Principal Investigator for MOLA and the lead author of a study published in the journal Science, said that, according to the new topographic map, Mars is slightly lopsided the northern hemisphere is low and smooth, but the southern hemisphere had many craters and an elevation of about 5 kilometers (3.1 miles) higher than that in the north. Additionally, Smith noted that the depression in Mars's northern hemisphere is "distinctly not circular," indicating that it formed from internal geologic processes rather than an external impact. Carl B. Pilcher, NASA's Science Director for Solar System Exploration, commented that the data MOLA had collected enabled scientists to know "the topography of Mars better than many continental regions on Earth." Pilcher said that the data would "serve as a basic reference book for Mars scientists for many years," inspiring "new insights about the planet's geologic history."
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