Oct 29 1998
From The Space Library
Space Shuttle Discovery Mission STS-95 launched from KSC in Cape Canaveral, Florida, carrying Commander Curtis L. Brown Jr.; Pilot [[Steven W. Lindsey]; Mission Specialists Scott E. Parazynski, Stephen K. Robinson, and Pedro Duque; and Payload Specialists Chiaki Mukai and John H. Glenn Jr. The primary objectives of STS-95 included conveying a variety of science experiments inside the SPACEHAB module; deploying and retrieving the Spartan free-flyer payload; performing operations with the HST Orbiting Systems Test; and transporting the International Extreme Ultraviolet Hitchhiker payloads. The historic mission also returned veteran astronaut John H. Glenn Jr. to space. Thirty-six years after Glenn had first orbited Earth, the seventy-seven-year-old astronaut became the oldest person to fly in orbit. As a veteran of NASA's early Mercury program, Glenn had been the first American to orbit Earth. On 20 February 1962, in a flight lasting 5 hours, Glenn had orbited Earth three times in a tiny capsule. After he had passed a battery of medical tests and participated in astronaut training, NASA had selected U.S. Senator John H. Glenn Jr. as a crew member of STS-95, so that scientists could study "how space travel affects an aging astronaut's body."
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