Spaceport NewsJohn F. Kennedy Space Center

America's gateway to the universe. Leading the world in preparing and launching missions to Earth and beyond.

July 19, 1996Vol. 35, No. 15Mission update

Mission: STS-78 on Columbia.

Launch date, time: June 20,10:49 a.m. from Launch Pad 39B.

Primary payload: Life andMicrogravity Spacelab (LMS).

Landing date, time: Columbiatouched down at Runway 33 ofthe Shuttle Landing Facility at8:36 a.m. on July 7, 1996. Thenearly 17-day-long flight madeSTS-78 the longest Shuttlemission to date.

KSC rolls out welcome for Olympic flame

Bertha sends Atlantis to VAB, boosters keep her there

(See STS-79, Page 8)

(See TORCH, Page 3)

KSC SHUTTLE Operations Manager Loren Shriver, right, transfers the Olympicflame to KSC runner Joanne Maceo's torch at the top of Launch Pad 39A after hecarried the Olympic torch to the top of the pad as his contribution to the torch relayeffort. Jon Granston of the Atlanta Committee for the Olympic Games (center)witnesses the exchange. Maceo then carried her lit torch down the concrete hardstand of the pad to pass the flame to another member of the KSC runner team.

Kennedy Space Centerwelcomed the Olympic flameJuly 7 in a big way. In additionto the landing of Columbia,which occured on time at 8:36a.m., spectators and mediawere also offered an

unforgettable view of theflame passing in front of theSpace Shuttle for STS-79.

As the flame made its wayto the Visitor Center, a throngof spectators heralded itsarrival with flag waving andcheers. The MelbourneMunicipal Band and Chal-lenger Fife and Drum Corpsprovided patriotic music. Anda recap of the day's activitiesand the torch's journey acrossthe United States played on ajumbo video wall.

NASA Administrator DanGoldin and Center Director

After the threat from Hurri-cane Bertha forced the rollbackof the Shuttle Atlantis to theVehicle Assembly Building onJuly 10, mission managers optedto keep her there to replace hersolid rocket boosters.

The decision means thefourth Shuttle-Mir docking

flight, Mission STS-79, will bedelayed until around mid-Sep-tember. It also means that U.S.astronaut Shannon Lucid is onher way to setting a new recordfor U.S. long-duration space-flight that will stand for sometime to come.

Atlantis’ motors are being

replaced because techniciansdisassembling the motors fromthe previous flight, STS-78, ob-served that hot gas had seepedinto J-joints in the field jointsof the motors.

The most probable cause for

Mission: STS-79 on Atlantis.

Launch date, time: Mid-September from Launch Pad39A.

Mission Synopsis: STS-79 isthe fourth in a series of NASAdocking missions to the RussianMir Space Station, leading to theconstruction and operation of theInternational Space Station. Asthe first flight of the SpacehabDouble Module, (see photo, page7) STS-79 encompassesresearch, test and evaluation ofISS as well as logistics resupplyfor the Mir Space Station. STS-79is also the first NASA/MirAmerican crew memberexchange, with astronaut JohnBlaha replacing Shannon Lucidaboard the Mir.

Landing date, time: To bedetermined.

Page 2 SPACEPORT NEWS July 19, 1996

THE NASA KENNEDY Management Association recently named new officers for 1996-97. The officers, installed during a banquet June 28 at KARS II are, from the left, BobGerron, Mission Assurance, treasurer; Vanessa Stromer, Shuttle Processing, secretary;and Catherine Alexander, Installation Operations, president. Not pictured is MiguelRodriguez, Payloads Processing, vice president.

The Kennedy Space CenterVisitor Center has a number ofevents underway to celebrateSpace Week, Tuesday, July 16through Tuesday, July 23.

Space Week is a nationallyrecognized period to honor themen and women whose effortshave contributed to America’sachievements in space. At presstime activities were set to beginJuly 16 with a talk and booksigning by Buzz Aldrin, the sec-ond man to walk on the moon,and the grand opening of theVisitor Center ’s “Mission toMars” interactive exhibit com-

Kennedy Space Centeremployees have an opportu-nity to contribute directly tothe community by volunteer-ing to assist Crisis Services ofBrevard, Inc. in responding tocalls for help.

The telephone counselingservice provides confidential24-hour-a-day service topeople who call in with anytype of problem.

Opportunities are availablefor trained and untrainedpositions as crisis line volun-teers, who provide 24-hour-a-day assistance to callers;sunshine service volunteers

who offer telephone outreachand reassurance to isolated orhomebound elderly clients;data entry assistants, whoassist in entering call dataand community resource datainto a computer system; andfund-raising, special projectsor administrative assistantswho help with events andprojects.

Time commitments varydepending upon the area ofservice. For more information,contact Linda Lawrence,program director, at 631-9290.Crisis Services of Brevard,Inc. is a United Way agency.

memorating the 20th anniver-sary of the Viking probe. Thatexhibit will be on displaythrough January 1997.

Upcoming features include anexclusive viewing of a com-memorative film on Apollo 11 tobe shown throughout the day onJuly 20, a public briefing andposter signing by astronaut/art-ist Alan Bean on July 22 from10 a.m. to noon and 1-3 p.m.; andan appearance by BarbaraEden, star of the television se-ries "I Dream of Jeannie" onJuly 23 from 11:30 a.m. to 1:30p.m. The activities are all free.

Space Week events planned at Visitor Center

Brevard crisis line seeks volunteers

SIX STUDENTS participating in the KSC/UCF Space Scholars Program andScience and Engineering Scholars Program recently assisted with a presentationat the University of Central Florida on preparing high school sophmores, juniorsand seniors for college. They are, from the left, Arthur McClung, a math majorat Morehouse College in Atlanta; Summer Weisburg, a computer engineeringmajor at the University of Central Florida; Monica Rivas, an industrial engineeringmajor at the University of Central Florida; Mimmie Lui, a civil engineering majorat the University of New Mexico; Shalot Armstrong, an electrical engineeringmajor at the University of Texas; and Brian Baron, a math major at Morehouse.The scholars programs target minority students who have traditionally beenunder-represented in engineering and science career fields. The objective is toprovide trained employees for permanent employment within the U.S. workforce.The students must maintain a 3.0 GPA and are awarded with a four-yearscholarship, a yearly allowance and ten weeks of summer employment at KSC.The programs are administered by the Equal Opportunity Office.

KSC employees volunteer at OlympicsJudy Casper, branch man-

ager of public relations forEG&G Florida, Inc., and KlausStaefe, who works in the Instal-lation Operations Directorate,are volunteering their sports-related experience to the Olym-pics.

Casper, who has an extensivebackground in sports adminis-tration, will be working withrepresentatives of the Interna-

tional Amateur Athletics Asso-ciation, the official governingbody for track and field compe-tition, for the duration of theGames, July 22 through Aug. 4.

Staefe, who has officiated athockey games on the interna-tional level, has been designatedas the officials coordinator for allsoccer games played in Orlando.Staefe also officiated at theWorld Cup in Orlando in 1994.

JUDY CASPER worked in sports information during the Olympic Trials last month.

SPACEPORT NEWS Page 3July 19, 1996

Warm crowds greet torchalong road through KSCTOP LEFT: KSC runner Eric Oulette,accompanied by an Atlanta Committee for theOlympic Games escort, proudly carries the torchdown the Saturn Causeway on the way to LaunchPad 39A.TOP RIGHT: Marty Winkel savors the cheers ofthe crowd as he delivers the torch to the KSCVistor Center.CENTER: Loren Shriver pauses in front of theSpace Shuttle Atlantis after receiving the flameat Launch Pad 39A.BELOW LEFT: STS-78 Pilot Kevin Kregel, NASAAdministrator Dan Goldin, Center Director JayHoneycutt and STS-78 Commander Tom Henricksstand with the symbolic torch the STS-78 crewcarried aboard that mission.BELOW RIGHT: Jane Hodges lights her torchfrom a cauldron where the flame was held duringceremonies at the Visitor Center.

TORCH. . .(Continued from Page 1)

Jay Honeycutt were on hand towelcome the torch as were STS-78Commander Tom Henricks and PilotKevin Kregel, who presented a sym-bolic torch that was flown on thatmission to a representative from theAtlanta Committee for the OlympicGames.

Hugh Harris, director of PublicAffairs, acknowledged each of the 20runners who carried the torch throughKennedy Space Center before signal-ing Jane Hodges, a Public Affairsemployee, to light her torch from acauldron holding the flame, and carryit forward on its journey to Atlanta andthe Games.

Page 4 SPACEPORT NEWS

Twenty years after the landing ofthe Viking Orbiter on Mars, plansare underway for a decade of ex-

ploratory missions to the Red Planet.On Nov. 6, NASA and the Jet Propulsion

Laboratory (JPL) plan to begin the effortwith the launch of Mars Global Surveyoron a Delta II rocket from Cape CanaveralAir Station (CCAS) Complex 17A. The Sur-veyor will travel hundreds of millions of ki-lometers to carry out an extensive study ofthe planet using its suite of sophisticatedremote-sensing instruments.

A month later, on Dec. 2, the Mars Path-finder is scheduled to launch on a DeltaRocket from CCAS Complex 17B.

Pathfinder will continue the work of theViking missions, the first of which landedon the Martian surface on July 15, 1976.Pathfinder's lander will release the first au-tonomous rover ever used to explore the sur-face of another planet.

The two projects begin a series oflaunches scheduled to occur every two yearsfor the next decade.

By studying Mars, the most likely planetfor future human expeditions, scientistshope to better understand the formation andevolution of Earth and the inner solar sys-tem.

Wayne Lee, mission planner for Mars op-erations at JPL, presented a briefing forKSC employees on July 8, highlighting theSurveyor and Pathfinder missions andsharing his insight on the development ofthe probes.

He also talked about the history of Marsexploration these missions are building on.

Mars probes build on past f

THIS IS THE first photograph ever taken on the surface of Mars. It was obtained by Viking 1 just minutes after the spacecraft landed on July 20, 1976. The image shows rocksand finely granulated material -- sand or dust. The large rock in the center is about four inches (10 centimeters) across.

AN OBLIQUE view of Mars, which captures what scientists jokingly refer to as the "smiley face," was obtained from12,000 miles (19,000 kilometers) away on July 11, 1976, by one of the Viking Orbiter 1's two TV cameras. This photois actually a composite of four frames taken through a red filter about three hours before the spacecraft made its dailypass over the landing site. With the horizon to the right, north is toward upper left.

SPACEPORT NEWS Page 5

Mariner paints first picture

The first successful spacecraft to flyby Mars was NASA’s Mariner 4launched in 1964, Mars Mission

Planner Wayne Lee said during his brief-ing at KSC.

That craft was able to collect images ofabout one percent of the Martian surfaceand showed a barren planet, full of cratersbut devoid of life.

Data from further Mariner missions con-tributed to a clearer picture of the mysteri-ous planet:

— Mars is less than half the size of Earthwith about a third of the Earth’s mass.

— Its gravity is three-eighths that ofEarth: an 80-kilogram astronaut wouldweigh about 30 kilograms on Mars.

— The planet is half again the distancefrom the Sun that the Earth is — about 1.5astronomical units. An AU is the averagedistance of Earth from the Sun, 150 millionkilometers. It takes two Earth years forMars to orbit the Sun once.

— The ice caps at Mars’ poles grow un-der a haze of cloud during winter in theplanet’s atmosphere. Summer ice caps arethought to be water ice but the winter capsare believed to contain frozen carbon diox-ide.

— Impact craters, which may be morethan 3 billion years old, dominate the south-ern hemisphere but are more thinly scat-tered over the mainly volcanic surface of thenorthern hemisphere.

— Smaller valleys, or channels, up to1,000 kilometers long, appear to have beenformed by running water which may havecome from rain.

Viking 1, 2 break new ground

V iking 1 and 2, each consisting ofan orbiter and a lander, werelaunched within a month of each

other in 1975 to attempt to learn more aboutthe planet by providing a close-up exami-nation of the surface. The landers set downin two widely separated areas of the north-

ern hemisphere. Data and images receivedfrom Viking painted a picture of subfreez-ing cold and dry desert — a terrain unsuit-able for life. The Viking orbiters found drybeds of once-flowing channels and streams.It is believed floods may have originated in

backshell will then be fired to further slowthe lander’s descent. The parachute and anattached tether will be released and thelander will be engulfed by airbags which willdissipate energy by allowing it to bounceon the surface. Once the lander comes to a

A videotape of Wayne Lee's presenta-tion on the Surveyor and the Pathfinder isavailable for checkout from the videolibrary at Headquarters, Room 1451.

The experience of the Pathfinderwill be capitalized on in 1998,2001, 2003 and 2005 when addi-

tional landers are scheduled to be launched.Small orbiters launched in 1998 and 2003will carry other instruments to serve as re-lay stations for later international missions.

Future to build on experience

complete rest, it will unfold three petals, de-signed to set the lander upright and pro-vide a platform for the six-wheeled solar-powered robot rover the size of a microwaveoven. The rover will carry instruments forinvestigating the structure of the Martianatmosphere, surface meterology, surface ge-ology, form and structure.

THESE HUBBLE SPACE TELESCOPE images, taken February 25, 1995, provide the most detailed complete globalcoverage of Mars ever seen from Earth.

The Pathfinder is set to provide afireworks display unlike any otheron July 4, 1997, when it will hurl

through the Martian atmosphere like ameteor until a parachute is deployed attwice the speed of sound at 10 kilometersabove the ground. Rockets inside the

Pathfinder will land in flurry

The Surveyor spacecraft is sched-uled to arrive at the skid strip atCCAS Aug. 15, Lee said. After

being launched at 1:30 p.m. Nov. 6, the craftis expected to reach Mars ten months later.Over a two-year period the Surveyor isgeared to provide global maps of the Mar-tian surface topography and mineral distri-bution and monitor global weather.

Surveyor to map surface

deep aquifers and surfaced during ancientperiods of volcanic activity.

Page 6 SPACEPORT NEWS July 19, 1996

Galileo captures new detail of Jupiter moonThe Galileo orbiter is providing the

clearest images of Jupiter’s largestmoon ever seen on Earth.

The first images to be returned to Earthwere released July 10 from the Jet Propul-sion Laboratory, Pasadena, CA. Galileo flewby the large, icy moon Ganymede at 2:29a.m. EDT on June 27, passing within 519miles (835 kilometers) of Ganymede at arelative speed of about 17,448 miles perhour. That is 70 times closer than Voyager2’s closest approach in 1979 and 133 timescloser than Voyager 1.

With a diameter of 3,269 miles (5,262kilometers), Ganymede is the larg-

est moon in the Solar System — bigger thanMercury and about three-quarters the sizeof Mars. It possesses a variety of familiarEarth-like geologic formations includingcraters and basins, grooves and mountains.The bulk of the satellite is believed to beabout half water-ice and half rock. Portionsof its surface are relatively bright, clean icewhile the other regions are covered withdarker “dirty” ice. The darker areas appearto be ancient and heavily cratered, whilethe lighter regions display evidence of tec-tonic activity that may have broken up theicy crust. Galileo entered orbit around Ju-

primarily for the banded appearance of itsupper atmosphere and its centuries-oldGreat Red Spot, a massive, hurricane-likestorm as big as three Earths. Jupiter gen-erates the biggest and most powerful plan-etary magnetic field, and it radiates moreheat from internal sources than it receivesfrom the Sun.

G iven its large size and its manynatural satellites, Jupiter is often

described as a miniature solar system. Ju-piter has 318 times more mass and 1,400times more volume than Earth, but is onlyone-fourth as dense, since it is composed pri-marily of hydrogen and helium. It is or-bited by at least 16 moons (and Galileo —its first artificial satellite).

The 2-1/2-ton Galileo orbiter spacecraftwas launched aboard Space Shuttle Atlantison Oct. 18, 1989. It carries the most ca-pable payload of scientific experiments eversent to another planet.

NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory builtthe Galileo orbiter spacecraft and managesthe overall mission.

Galileo’s atmospheric probe, whichplunged into the planet on Dec. 7, 1995, wasmanaged by NASA’s Ames Research Cen-ter, Mountain View, CA.

piter on Dec. 7, 1995.Galileo’s high-resolution images show

features on Ganymede as small as 33 feetacross. Instruments on board will assessGanymede’s surface chemistry and searchfor signs of an atmosphere around the bigmoon. Measurements will be made to char-acterize Ganymede’s gravity field and todetermine if it possesses a magnetic field.

Galileo’s Ganymede encounter marks thestart of a steady stream of data to be re-turned to Earth by Galileo’s instrumentsthroughout the course of its two-year tourof the Jovian system, which continuesthrough December 1997.

Beginning this month, data return willinclude an average of two to three imagesper day.

The remainder of Galileo’s mission isto complete 11 orbits of Jupiter, con-

ducting multiple close flybys of the moonsGanymede, Europa and Callisto, with nu-merous, more distant studies of the moonIo also scheduled throughout the tour. Stud-ies of Jupiter itself are planned throughoutthe tour, and nearly continuous studies ofJupiter’s enormous radiation and magneticfields will be conducted.

The fifth planet from the Sun is known

THIS PICTURE OF Jupiter was taken by Voyager 2 on June 10, 1979, from adistance of 24 million kilometers. The shadow of Ganymede, the largest ofthe Jovian satellites, is visible on top of the planet's cloud patterns at left. Atright is Io, the innermost of the large satellites.

THE GALILEO spacecraft has provided this view of the surface of Ganymede.The moon, three-quarters the size of Mars, contains craters and basins,grooves and mountains. Additional images can be found on the World WideWeb at: http://newproducts.jpl.nasa.gov/galileo/.

SPACEPORT NEWS Page 7July 19, 1996

While Galileo has been gatheringground-breaking data about Jupiter

and its moon, the Hubble Space Telescopehas consistently been providing equallyrevolutionary information about stars.

Most recently the telescope has beenused successfully to measure the diametersof a special class of pulsating stars calledMira variables, which rhythmically changesize.

The results suggest these gigantic, oldstars aren’t round but egg-shaped.

Knowing more about these enigmaticstars is crucial to understanding how starsevolve, and may preview the fate of the Sun,five billion years from now.

Due to their distance, the stars are toosmall for their disks to be resolved inconventional pictures (taken in visible light),so astronomers used Hubble’s Fine Guid-ance Sensors (FGS) to achieve visible lightobservations of the angular diameters (ameasure of apparent width) of two Miravariables, R Leonis and W Hydrae.

These unique observations weremade by Dr. Mario G. Lattanzi of

Turin Observatory (Italy), Dr. M. Feast ofCape Town University (South Africa), Dr. U.Munari of Padova Observatory (Italy), andDr. P. Whitelock with the South AfricanAstronomical Observatory. The results arebeing submitted to the AstrophysicalJournal Letters for publication.

Hubble’s Fine Guidance Sensors arenormally used for tracking astronomicaltargets that are observed with the otherscientific instruments aboard Hubble.Instead of taking pictures, the FGSs makean interference pattern from incomingstarlight.

The resulting bright and dark zonescreated by the interference pattern, whichresemble ripples in a pond, can be used tomeasure extremely small angles on the skyof only 1/100 of an arcsecond across (theapparent width of a dime at about 200 milesaway).

FGS measurements show that R Leonis’apparent diameter (in visible light) is 70 x 78milliarcseconds (eight by nine hundredmillion miles at the star’s distance of about390 light years) along the star’s long andshort axis, respectively, and 76 by 91milliarcseconds (with linear dimensionssimilar to those of R Leonis) for W Hydrae.If placed within our solar system, both ofthese stars would extend well beyond theorbit of the Earth and almost to that ofJupiter.

Hubble provides newperspective on stars

STS-79 MISSION Specialists Carl Walz, left, and Jay Apt examine the layout of the double Spacehab module.The double module configuration will be flown for the first time on Mission STS-79, the fourth docking of theU.S. Shuttle to the Russian Space Station Mir. Doubling the pressurized mini-laboratory allows more suppliesand equipment to be taken to Mir, while still allowing room for scientific research.

launch costs that are a tenth of what theyare now. Our goal is a reusable launch ve-hicle that will cut the cost of a pound of pay-load to orbit from $10,000 to $1,000.”

The X-33 will integrate and demonstrateall the technologies in a scale version thatwould be needed for industry to build a full-size RLV. “The X-33 will be about half thesize of a full-scale RLV. It will be a remotely-piloted, sub-orbital vehicle, capable of alti-tudes up to 50 miles and speeds of Mach15,” said RLV Director Gary Payton.

The X-33 program is being conductedunder a Cooperative Agreement, not a con-ventional customer/supplier contract.

Under this agreement, NASA defined thebroad objectives and industry proposed anapproach to meet the objectives.

“Cooperative agreements are perfor-mance-based,” said Payton. “Payment ismade only after the industry partner com-pletes a pre-determined milestone.”

“The X-33 test vehicle is the most ad-vanced part of a three-pronged RLV pro-gram to develop and demonstrate the kindsof technologies required by industry to builda new launch system that will provide trulyaffordable and reliable access to space,”Payton said. “The RLV approach is to de-sign a little, build a little, test a little, fly alittle.”

Three industry teams competed for theX-33 vehicle. In addition to Lockheed Mar-tin, proposals were submitted by McDonnellDouglas, Huntington Beach, CA, andRockwell International, Downey, CA.

Lockheed Martin has been selected tobuild the X-33 test vehicle, a one-half scalemodel of the Reusable Launch Vehicle (RLV)which will be used to demonstrate advancedtechnologies that will dramatically increasereliability and lower the costs of puttingpayloads into space.

Lockheed Martin will design, build andconduct the first test flight of the X-33 testvehicle by March 1999, and conduct at leastfifteen flights by December 1999. NASA hasbudgeted $941 million for the projectthrough 1999. Lockheed Martin will invest$220 million in its X-33 design.

Called “VentureStar,” the Lockheed Mar-tin design is based on a lifting body shapewith a radical new aerospike engine and arugged metallic thermal protection systemwhich would be launched vertically like arocket and land horizontally like an air-plane.

“The RLV program is a radical depar-ture from the way NASA has done businessin the past,” NASA Administrator DanielS. Goldin said. “Our role is to develop thehigh risk technologies that industry cannotafford. But we won’t build the vehicle, in-dustry will. NASA will be a user, not anoperator.”

Goldin said the objective of the RLV tech-nology program is simple. “We want to de-velop technologies that will allow industryto build a vehicle that takes days, notmonths, to turn-around; dozens, not thou-sands of people to operate; reliability tentimes better than anything flying today; and

Lockheed Martin selected to build X-33

John F. Kennedy Space Center

Spaceport News The Spaceport News is an official publication of the Kennedy SpaceCenter and is published on alternate Fridays by the Public Affairs Officein the interest of KSC civil service and contractor employees. Contributions are welcome and should be submitted two weeks be-fore publication to the Media Services Branch, PA-MSB. E-mail submis-sions can be sent to Barbara.Compton-1@kmail.ksc.nasa.gov

Managing editor. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Lisa MaloneEditor. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Barb ComptonEditorial support provided by Sherikon Space Systems Inc. writers group.

USGPO: 733-096/20025

SPACEPORT NEWS July 19, 1996Page 8

Six Silver Snoopies and aSpace Flight Awareness TeamAward were presented toKennedy Space Center employ-ees in June.

Astronaut Pam Melroypresented the prestigiousSnoopy award to Chris Bowmanof All World Travel and GordonChapp and Mark McBride ofRockwell International on June5. On June 25, Astronaut JanetKavandi presented the award toWang Federal employee Rich-ard Miron and Lockheed SpaceOperations employees (nowUnited Space Alliance) VictorToro and Mike Ramon.

On June 27, Cal Burch,NASA Protective ServicesOffice, presented the five-member EG&G Facility Evacua-tion Committee with an awardfor generating increased aware-ness of fire-safety issues and

emergency evacuation proce-dures. The team developed aFacility Evacuation Preparednesshandout and revised internaloperating procedures, focusingon developing a pre-evacuationbriefing for site manager, super-visors, and/or safety officials.Team members are: WilliamHuffman, fire marshal, andMelany Baskin, Arthur McKinney,Lee Starrick and CarolynWeisner, fire inspectors.

Space Flight Awarenessawards are presented

STS-79. . .(Continued from Page 1)

THE SPACE SHUTTLE ATLANTIS is rolled back from Launch Pad 39A to the VehicleAssembly Building on July 10 in response to the threat of Hurricane Bertha. Althoughthe storm eventually took a turn to the north and stayed well clear of the Florida coast,early indications were that the Category Two hurricane, with winds of 96-110 mph, wasapproaching the Space Coast, prompting a center-wide evacuation. A 250-memberrideout team was activated to conduct hurricane operations throughout the night. BrevardCounty barrier islands were also evacuated. After the National Weather Service issuedan all-clear at 5 a.m. July 11, KSC employees were allowed to return to work.

bringing some requested itemsfor her such as more books toread. And while she will misscrew mates Yuri Onufrienko andYuri Usachev, she looks forwardto having another woman onboard for a little while — one ofthe three new crew members isFrench woman Claudie Andre-

Deschays, whom Lucid metwhile training in Russia.

Asked what advice she has forJohn Blaha, the astronaut whowill replace her on Mir, Lucid re-sponded: “To relax and enjoyyourself and take each day as itcomes.” Lucid has relied onstrong support from her family.She receives e-mail from themdaily, which keeps her informedand makes her feel like shehasn’t lost contact.

On July 15, Lucid broke the115-day record for U.S. stay inspace set last year by NormThagard. “I imagine we’ll findsomething special to do” to com-memorate the event, she said. “Itdoesn’t take much for us to finda reason to celebrate.”

ROLLBACKS Atlantis’ return to the VAB

July 10 marks the 11th time ashuttle has been rolled back fromthe pad. Other rollbacks are:

1. STS-9, Columbia, October1983, due to suspect exhaustnozzle on right solid rocketbooster.

2. STS-41-D, Discovery, July1984, after a pad abort.

3. STS 51-E/51-B, Chal-lenger, March 1985, due to atiming problem with primarypayload, Tracking and DataRelay Satellite-B.

4. STS-35, Columbia, 1st of 2rollbacks, June 1990, due tohydrogen leak in the externaltank/orbiter 17-inch umbilical.

5. STS-38, Atlantis, August1990, due to hydrogen leak.

6. STS-35, Columbia, secondrollback, October 1990, due tothreat from Tropical Storm Klaus.

7. STS-39, Discovery, March1991, because of cracks on lughinges of external tank umbilicaldoor drive mechanisms.

8. STS-68, Endeavour,August 1994, after pad abort.

9. STS-70, Discovery, June1995, due to woodpeckerdamage on external tank.

10. STS-69, Endeavour,August 1995, due to HurricaneErin.

the seepage is a new adhesiveand cleaning fluid that is moreenvironmentally friendly thanthe original.

While the crew of STS-78 wasnever in danger and the STS-79boosters are safe to fly, manag-ers want to better understandthe J-joint problem and to im-prove the safety of the joint.

The extension requires somepsychological re-grouping, Lucidacknowledged in a July 15 newsconference. She had been pacingherself since her arrival on MirMarch 24, and had reached apoint where she was starting tocount down the days to her re-turn to Earth. There are otherchallenges as well: She is nowgoing to miss two of herchildren’s birthdays, and in Au-gust her two crewmates will de-part and a new crew arrives.

But Lucid is tackling the newsituation with the same custom-ary good humor and positivespirits that she has shownthroughout her stay on Mir. AProgress supply transport willfly up to the station July 24,