STS-80
Report # 06 
November 22, 1996 6 a.m. CST 
 
 As crew members begin their fourth day of STS-80, all systems on
board Columbia are ready for the second satellite deployment of the
flight and the beginning of the Wake Shield Facility's third mission
in space.

  Astronaut Tom Jones is scheduled to release the Wake Shield Facility
at 7:11 p.m. CST this evening to begin three days of thin film
semiconductor wafer growth in an ultravacuum produced by its wake. A
television camera survey and systems checkout of the Wake Shield on
Thursday showed it to be in good health and ready to be deployed.

  The stainless steel satellite from the University of Houston Space
Vacuum Epitaxy Center will push aside the gas atoms that remain 220
miles above the Earth's surface so that scientists may produce
films 100 to 1,000 times better than those that can be grown on
Earth. These thin films of aluminum gallium arsenide could be used to
make the next generation of semiconductors for use in computer chips
and other advanced electronic devices.

  STS-80 Commander Ken Cockrell and Pilot Kent Rominger performed a
fifth maneuvering burn late Thursday to increase the distance between
Columbia and the ORFEUS-SPAS satellite and provide a safe margin for
the Wake Shield deployment. ORFEUS-SPAS was deployed on launch day for
14 days of extreme ultraviolet observations of stars and
galaxies. ORFEUS-SPAS is trailing Columbia by about 33 miles and that
distance is increasing by about three miles every orbit. The two
spacecraft will be about 50 miles apart when the Wake Shield is
released.

  Final preparations for the Wake Shield release will begin about 1
p.m. Friday, when Jones powers up the shuttle's Canadian-built
robot arm and grapples the satelllite. Shortly before 2 p.m, Payload
Commander Tammy Jernigan will power up the Orbiter Space Vision
System, which will be used to track precisely the Wake Shield's
location,.and Cockrell will place Columbia in a gravity gradient
attitude to minimize disturbances during the release. Jones will use
the robot arm to hold Wake Shield in position for a two-and-a-half
hour cleansing by atomic oxygen molecules before moving the arm to the
deploy position.

Columbia is currently in a 220 by 216 statute mile orbit.

-end-