STS-99 Day 1 Highlights

On Friday, February 11, 2000, 12:15 p.m. CST, STS-99 MCC Status Report # 1 reports:

With six astronauts on board, Endeavour sped to orbit under cloudless skies from the Kennedy Space Center.today to begin the Shuttle Radar Topography Mission, the first human space flight of the 21st century.

Commander Kevin Kregel, Pilot Dom Gorie, and Mission Specialists Janice Voss, Janet Kavandi, Gerhard Thiele and Mamoru Mohri blasted off 14 minutes into the available 2 hour plus launch window at 11:44 a.m. Central time after a near flawless countdown, and arrived on orbit 8 minutes later. The slight delay in launching Endeavour was due to the launch team needing a few minutes to resolve some minor technical issues before proceeding with the final portion of the countdown.

The STS-99 crew's first tasks were to set up Endeavour for dual shift, round-the-clock operations using a trio of radar systems mounted in the cargo bay for the most comprehensive three-dimensional map of the Earth ever attempted.

Once Endeavour's payload bay doors are opened, the Red team of Kregel, Kavandi and Thiele will begin to activate the Shuttle radar instruments, and will prepare for the deployment of a 200-foot long boom over the left wing of the orbiter on which two of the radar systems are housed. That boom deploy will begin about 5 + hours into the mission.

Kregel, Kavandi and Thiele will conduct a series of jet thruster firings once the boom is deployed to test its ability to flex properly and will set up recorders on board on which the radar data will be stored for downlink to mission scientists on the ground.

Meantime, the Blue team of Gorie, Voss and Mohri will begin an abbreviated six hour sleep period at 3:44 p.m. They'll be awakened at 9:44 p.m., soon after the radar boom has been checked out, to begin radar mapping operations late tonight.

Endeavour is orbiting the Earth in an orbit inclined 57 degrees to either side of the Equator for the radar mapping of around 80 per cent of the Earth's surface. Endeavour is orbiting the planet every 90 minutes at an altitude of about 127 nautical miles.

The next STS-99 status report will be issued tonight after the radar boom mast is deployed.

On Friday, February 11, 2000, 8 p.m. CST, STS-99 MCC Status Report # 2 reports:

Space shuttle astronauts deployed the longest rigid structure ever built in space today and continued work to check out the equipment they will use to produce unrivaled three-dimensional image Red Team leader Commander Kevin Kregel, and colleagues Janet Kavandi and Gerhard Thiele initiated extension of the radar mast at 5:27 p.m. CST. After 17 minutes, all 87 cube-shaped bays of the carbon fiber-reinforced plastic, stainless steel, alpha titanium, and Invar structure were deployed by 5:44 p.m. Total length of the mast was 60.95 meters, or just under 200 feet.

The crew also maneuvered the shuttle into the proper attitude, or orientation, for mapping. This orientation points the shuttle payload bay and its inboard and outboard radar antennas at the Earth. Endeavour's tail is leading the way as the shuttle orbits about 150 statute miles above the surface. The Red Team then began a series of jet thruster firings to test the ability of dampers to absorb the force of planned maneuvering jet firings and keep the inboard and outboard antennas properly aligned. This alignment is crucial for scientists who will need to combine the radar images received by the two sets of antennas.

The Shuttle Radar Topography Mission will record radar data in both C-band and X-band radar wavelengths. This data eventually will be processed into 3-D maps of the Earth that are 30 times more exact that those currently available. These maps will be important to scientists in many disciplines, ranging from ecology to geology to hydrology, as well as a number of military and commercial applications. As the Red Team performed the checkout procedures, Blue Team members Dom Gorie, Janice Voss and Mamoru Mohri set up the shuttle's network of portable computers and began an abbreviated six-hour sleep period at 3:44 p.m. They'll be awakened at 9:44 p.m. to begin radar mapping operations late tonight.

Endeavour is orbiting the Earth in an orbit inclined 57 degrees to either side of the Equator for the radar mapping of a majority of the Earth's surface. The shuttle completes one orbit every 90 minutes at an altitude of about 150 statute miles.

Go to STS-99 Flight Day 2 Highlights: