STS-80
Report # 08 
Friday, November 22, 1996 8 p.m. CST 
 
 Columbia's crew released the Wake Shield Facility at 7:38
p.m. central as the two spacecraft flew about 200 miles above the
western Pacific on the 51st orbit of the STS-80 mission.

  Shortly after release from the shuttle's remote manipulator system,
or robot arm, the Wake Shield Facility's ground control team issued
a command to fire a tiny nitrogen thruster that produced about a tenth
of a pound of thrust to gently separate the spacecraft from Columbia.
The thruster fired for 19 minutes to eventually put the Wake Shield
about 20 to 30 miles away from the orbiter for three days of free
flight operations before its scheduled retrieval late Monday night.

  Science operations begin tomorrow morning about 8 o'clock with
the first investigations into thin film semiconductor growth occuring
in the wake of the saucer-shaped satellite as it produces an
ultravacuum to create advanced semiconductor materials.

  The Wake Shield was grappled by the shuttle's robot arm at 1:25
Friday afternoon.  It was then unlatched from the payload bay at 2:56
p.m.  After pointing the experiment side of the Wake Shield into the
direction of travel allowing atomic oxygen to "cleanse" the
satellite's underside in preparation for experiment operations the
satellite was maneuvered over the side of the shuttle payload bay
allowing controllers to verify and calibrate the operation of the Wake
Shield's attitude control system.

  At the time of release, Columbia and the Wake Shield were about 58
miles ahead of the ORFEUS-SPAS astronomy satellite deployed on launch
day Tuesday.  During the time both satellites are flying free of the
shuttle, Wake Shield will remain about 28 miles from ORFEUS-SPAS and
about 23 miles from Columbia.

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