MISSION CONTROL CENTER
STS-70 Status Report #1


Thursday, July 13, 1995, 5 p.m. CDT

   After a flawless launch this morning, the crew of Discovery
accomplished the main objective of their flight this afternoon with
the trouble-free deploy of a NASA communications satellite.

   Following an 8:42 a.m. launch, the Tracking and Data Relay
Satellite-G, the sixth and last such satellite to be deployed from a
space shuttle, was ejected from Discovery's cargo bay exactly on time
at 2:55 p.m. Central.  The release of the satellite was overseen by
Mission Specialists Don Thomas and Mary Ellen Weber.  About 15 minutes
later, Discovery's Commander Tom Henricks fired the shuttle's engines
to raise the orbit and move away from the vicinity of the satellite
and its Inertial Upper Stage booster.  At about 3:55 p.m., the
satellite's IUS booster fired the first of two burns that will put
TDRS-G into its proper, 22,000-mile-high geostationary orbit above the
central Pacific Ocean.  The next burn for the IUS booster is planned
for around 9:30 p.m.

   In Mission Control, operations are in the process of being moved to a
new facility.  Following the satellite deploy, flight controllers are
planning to vacate the current room which has been used for three
decades, since Gemini 4 in 1965, to control human space flights.
Beginning at about 6:30 p.m. Central, the overnight shift of flight
controllers will be the first to operate from the New Mission Control
Center, and all further orbit operations for STS-70 and future flights
will be performed from the new control center.

   Until early next year, launches and landings still will be controlled
from the old Mission Control.  But, eventually, they also will be
flown from the new control room and the old room will be permanently
vacated.

  Discovery's crew will begin an eight-hour sleep period at 7:12
p.m. Central and awaken for the second day of STS-70 at 3:12
a.m. Friday.

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