STS-80
Report # 32 
Tuesday, December 3, 1996  6 a.m. CST 
 
Routine space operations were the order of business for Columbia's
five astronauts today as they monitored experiments and discussed the
mission during a news conference. Leading their astronomy spacecraft
by 20 nautical miles, the crewmembers again conducted small engine
firings to maintain that distance prior to the early Wednesday morning
retrieval of the satellite.

With the extra day of science gathering by the ORFEUS-SPAS, retrieval
is now scheduled to occur at 2:09 a.m. central time following
rendezvous maneuvers by Commander Ken Cockrell and Pilot Kent Rominger
beginning a couple of hours after waking up at 6:26 p.m. today.

Once grappled by the shuttle's robot arm, the satellite will be
maneuvered through a planned profile to allow data to be gathered in
support of the Orbiter Space Vision System, which uses the payload bay
cameras and a series of strategically placed ‘dots' to provide
precise relative position, attitude, and rate cues in a concise
graphical and digital format. Mission Specialists Tammy Jernigan, Tom
Jones and Story Musgrave will use these cues to perform robot arm
operations and/or proximity operations before berthing the satellite
in the payload bay at 6:39 a.m. Wednesday.

Jernigan, Jones and Musgrave signed organ donor cards this morning to
help in increasing public awareness of the importance of organ
transplantation in saving lives. The U.S. Department of Health and
Human Services reports that more than 50,000 Americans are on a
national waiting list to receive organs.

Cockrell and Rominger sent a playful message in support of this
weekend's Army-Navy football game by saying "Go Navy, beat
Army." Cockrell is a captain in the Naval Reserve and Rominger is
Navy Commander. Mission Control's Bill McArthur, a fellow astronaut
and Army Colonel, responded to the downlink, "In your
dreams."

The astronauts sleep shifting continues to move later each day in
preparation for Friday's planned landing at Kennedy Space Center in
Florida. Landing time for the first opportunity on December 6 is 7:02
a.m.




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