MISSION CONTROL CENTER
STS-70 Status Report #5

Saturday, July 15, 1995, 3 p.m. CDT

With Discovery performing as flawlessly as has any spacecraft in
history, crew members completed a steady pace of experiment work
during their third day in orbit, taking a few breaks to speak with
media and other guests.

The day's work centered on the HERCULES video camera, a camera
experiment sponsored by the Department of Defense Space Test Program
that allows the video to be automatically marked with the latitude and
longitude of its subject areas. Pilot Kevin Kregel and Mission
Specialist Nancy Currie worked with the camera, attempting to finely
align its internal navigation equipment by using star
sightings. Payload controllers are currently evaluating various
methods that may make it easier for the crew to take sights on stars
and align the camera as the flight progresses.

Other work included operations with an experiment that gauges
astronauts' reflexes and hand-eye coordination by having a subject
respond to quick questioning from a laptop computer using a touch
screen. Another observation was made with the Windex experiment as
well, a study that observes the glowing effect created by the
shuttle's surfaces as they encounter atomic oxygen in low
orbit. Windex observed the effect of an engine firing on the glow
yesterday and today observed the effect of a waste water dump from the
shuttle.

The crew also is maintaining a variety of biological experiments
ranging from tissue loss in space to the growth of cell cultures in
weightlessness to the effect of space flight on the early development
of animals.

During the day, the crew spoke with World War II veteran Harland
Claussen at the Clement Zablocki Veterans Affairs Medical Center in
Milwaukee, WI, celebrating the installation of the first phone in that
VA facility for the free use of patients. Later in the day, ABC's Mike
and Maty show interviewed crew members as did the Toledo Blade
newspaper of Toledo, Ohio.

The crew begins an eight-hour sleep period at 5:12 p.m. and will
awaken for Day 4 of the mission at 1:12 a.m. Sunday. Discovery remains
in a 195 mile by 175 mile orbit.

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