STS-91 Day 1 Highlights

On Tuesday, June 2, 1998, 6:30 p.m. CDT, STS-91 MCC Status Report # 1 reports:

The United States began its last flight to the Russian Mir Space Station today with a flawless, on-time liftoff of the Space Shuttle Discovery and a six-member crew at 5:06 p.m. CDT.

During the next two days, Commander Charlie Precourt will watch over periodic engine firings that will guide Discovery toward the Mir, which was passing over Ireland, almost 5,000 miles ahead of the shuttle, at liftoff. With Precourt aboard Discovery are Pilot Dominic Gorie and Mission Specialists Frankliin Chiang-Diaz, Wendy Lawrence, Janet Kavandi and Valery Ryumin, a veteran Russian Space Agency cosmonaut.

Awaiting a ride home from the Mir is astronaut Andy Thomas, who has been aloft since Jan. 22. Thomas is the last of seven astronauts who have stayed aboard the Mir during the past three and a half years, completing a combined total of almost 1,000 days on the Russian station.

Discovery is planned to dock with Mir around noon CDT Thursday. Tonight, the crew will begin powering up the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer, a scientific instrument that will probe questions about the creation of the universe from the shuttle's cargo bay. The instrument is intended to look for antimatter supposedly left over after the creation of the universe according to the "Big Bang" theory. It also will look for signs of "dark matter" that has been theorized to constitute most of the universe.

The official liftoff time for Discovery was 5:06:24 p.m. CDT. The crew will begin an eight-hour sleep period at 10:06 p.m. CDT today and awaken for the first full day in orbit of the mission at 6:06 a.m. CDT Wednesday. The next Mission Control Center status report will be issued at 6:30 a.m. Wednesday.

Go to STS-91 Flight Day 2 Highlights: