STS-72 Status Report # 5
					  Mission Control Center

Saturday, Jan. 13, 6 a.m. CST

Mission Specialist Koichi Wakata used Endeavour's robot arm to
retrieve the Japanese Space Flyer Unit satellite at 4:57 a.m. central
time completing its 10-month scientific voyage and the primary
objective of the first Shuttle mission of the year. Berthing of the
SFU was completed at 5:39 a.m. as Endeavour passed southeast of
Madagascar.

The retrieval followed jettison of both solar arrays when sensors
indicated the panels did not latch properly against the satellite
after being retracted.  The jettison procedure was trained for
preflight as a contingency in the event of just such an occurence.
The cannisters housing the arrays were jettisoned 12 minutes apart --
at 3:35 and 3:47 this morning -- as Endeavour and the SFU traveled
across Africa on the thirtieth orbit of the STS-72 mission.

The contingency procedure delayed the capture of the satellite by
about an hour and half from its originally scheduled 3:26
a.m. retrieval.  The SFU was placed on internal battery power prior to
the solar array retraction activity giving it four hours of electrical
power.  Once in Endeavour's payload bay, the satellite's
internal batteries were bypassed following connection of a remotely
operated electrical cable to the side of the satellite.

Wakata grappled the SFU satellite following a flawless rendezvous to
catch the 4-ton spacecraft. Commander Brian Duffy flew Endeavour
during the final phase of the rendezvous from the Shuttle's aft
flight deck controls, moving the orbiter to within a few feet of the
SFU allowing Wakata to attach the robot arm to the satellite's
grapple fixture.  Endeavour was orbiting the Earth over the Gulf of
Mexico near the western tip of Cuba at an altitude of about 290
statute miles at the time of the retrieval.

The retrieval of SFU capped off 10 months of scientific investigations
involving almost a dozen experiments ranging from materials science to
biological studies.  The satellite was launched on March 18, 1995
aboard a Japanese H-2 rocket from the Tanegashima Space Center in
Japan.

The astronauts were awakened last night by a traditional Japanese
song, "Sea in Springtime", in honor of the retrieval of the
Space Flyer Unit.

The astronauts will begin an eight-hour sleep period at 10:41 this
morning and will wake up tonight at 6:41.  The crew's fourth day in
space will be highlighted by the deployment of a NASA science
satellite called the OAST-Flyer.  The satellite will be retrieved
later in the flight.

The Johnson Space Center Newsroom closes this morning at 11 and will
reopen at 11 tonight.  The next status report will be issued at 5
a.m. Sunday.