(Third Space Flight)

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(Second Space Flight) Mission Specialist 2:

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STS-49 STS-50 (U.S. Microgravity Laboratory 1) was a United States Space Shuttle mission, the 12th mission of the Columbia orbiter. Columbia landed at Kennedy Space Centre for the first time ever due to bad weather at Edwards caused by the remnants of Hurricane Darby 1992.

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Pages within this section: USA Shuttle Mission Flights

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The Space Shuttle Missions

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The Space Shuttle Columbia rocketed to orbit for the longest Shuttle flight in history. Columbia touched down almost 14 days later returning with data and specimens amassed from an important suite of microgravity experiments. Shuttle mission STS-50 carried the first United States Microgravity Laboratory (USML-1) to space, conducting long-duration microgravity experiments. Microgravity is a gravitational acceleration that is small when compared to the gravitational attraction at Earth's surface. Through the action of free fall (e.g., Space Shuttle orbiting Earth), the local effects of gravity are greatly reduced, thus creating a microgravity environment.

During the extended mission of Columbia, scientist crew members, working inside the Spacelab long module carried in the payload bay of Columbia, conducted more than 30 microgravity investigations and tests. To maximize the scientific return from the mission, experiments took place around-the-clock. The investigations fell under five basic areas of microgravity science research: fluid dynamics (the study of how liquids and gases respond to the application or absence of differing forces), materials science (the study of materials solidification and crystal growth), combustion science (the study of the processes and phenomena of burning), biotechnology (the study of phenomena related to products derived from living organisms), and technology demonstrations that sought to prove experimental concepts for use in future Shuttle missions and on Space Station Freedom.

Three new major experiment facilities were flown on USML-1. They were the Crystal Growth Furnace, Surface Tension Driven Convection Experiment apparatus, and Drop Physics Module. An additional piece of new hardware on this flight was the versatile Glovebox, which permitted "hands-on" manipulation of small experiments while isolating the crew from the liquids, gases, or solids involved.

-Completed first dedicated United States Micro-gravity Laboratory flight laying the groundwork for Space Station Freedom science operations.
-Completed 31 microgravity experiments in five basic areas: fluid dynamics, crystal growth, combustion science, biological science, and technology demonstration.
-Introduced several new microgravity experiment facilities for multiple users and multiple flights (including the Crystal Growth Furnace, Drop Physics Module, and the Surface Tension Driven Convection Experiment).
-Demonstrated the efficiency of interactive science operations between crewmembers and scientists on the ground for optimizing science return.
-Completed longest period of protein crystal growth in Space Shuttle program.
-Conducted iterative crystal growing experiments where chemical compositions were altered based upon microscopic observations of growth processes.
-Completed longest Space Shuttle mission (13 days 19 hours 30 minutes) at that time and the first Extended Duration Orbiter (EDO) flight of the Space Shuttle Program.
-Demonstrated versatility of the new Glovebox facility for crewmember interaction with multiple experiments for maximum science.

Spacelab Module LM1 in Columbia's payload bay, serving as the United States Microgravity Laboratory