STS-88 Detail Page for Overview: STS-88 Launches New Era of Space Exploration

Mission Overview

STS-88 Launches New Era of Space Exploration

Space Shuttle mission STS-88, the 13th flight of the Space Shuttle Endeavour, will begin the largest international cooperative space venture in history as it attaches together in orbit the first two modules of the International Space Station.

Endeavour will carry the Unity connecting module, the first U.S.-built station module, into orbit, launching from Kennedy Space Center's Launch Pad 39A at 3:59 a.m. EST Dec. 3. Endeavour’s launch will follow the launch of the first element of the statio the Zarya control module which took place on Nov. 20, 1998.

Zarya was boosted into orbit by a Russian Proton rocket from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakstan. Funded by the U.S. but built in Russia, Zarya will act as a type of space tugboat for the early station, providing propulsion, power, communications and the capability to perform an automated rendezvous and docking with the third module, the Russian-provided Service Module, an early living quarters. Since achieving orbit, Zarya has gone through on-orbit checks and now awaits the arrival of Endeavour and Unity. Unity will serve as the main connecting point for later U.S. station modules and components.

Astronaut Robert D. (Bob) Cabana (Col., USMC) will command STS-88. Joining Cabana on the flight deck of Endeavour will be pilot Frederick "Rick" Sturckow (Major, USMC). Rounding out the crew are Mission Specialists Nancy Currie (Lt. Col., USA), Jerry Ross (Col., USAF), Jim Newman, Ph.D., and Sergei Krikalev, a Russian cosmonaut. Ross and Newman also are designated extravehicular activity (EVA) crewmembers and will perform three spacewalks during the mission.

STS-88 marks Cabana's fourth flight in space. He served as chief of the Astronaut Office at JSC from 1994 until his selection for the STS-88 crew. Currie and Newman each will be making their third flight into space. Ross will be making his sixth space flight. Sturckow will be making his first space flight. Krikalev has flown in space three times, twice on the Mir space station and once on the Shuttle. Krikalev also is a member of the first crew that will live aboard the new station in mid-1999.

Cabana will fly Endeavour to a rendezvous with Zarya, and Currie will use the Shuttle's robotic arm to capture the Russian-built spacecraft and attach it to the Unity module in the Shuttle cargo bay. Zarya will be the most massive object ever moved with the Shuttle's mechanical arm. On later days of the flight, Ross and Newman will conduct three spacewalks to finalize the connections between Zarya and Unity, beginning five years of orbital assembly work that will construct the new space station.

After its assembly work is completed and it has undocked from the station, Endeavour will release two small science satellites. After almost 12 days in space that begin a new era of exploration and research in orbit, Endeavour will land at the Kennedy Space Center.

UNITY Connecting Module