Mission Insignia
Mission Statistics
Mission:	STS-56
Shuttle:	Discovery
Launch Pad:	Pad 39-B
Launch:	April 8, 1993, 1:29:00 a.m. EDT.
Landing:	April 17, 1993, 7:37:19 a.m. EDT.
Duration:	9 days, 6 hours, 8 minutes, 24 seconds
Orbit Altitude:	160 nautical miles (296 km)
Orbit Inclination:	57 degrees
Distance traveled:	3,853,997 miles (6,202,407 km)
Crew photo

Crew

• Commander: Kenneth D. Cameron (2)
• Pilot: Stephen S. Oswald (2)
• Mission Specialist 1: C. Michael Foale (2)
• Mission Specialist 2: Kenneth D. Cockrell (1)
• Mission Specialist 3: Ellen Ochoa (1)

Mission Parameters

• Mass:
  • Orbiter landing with payload: 93,683 kg
  • Payload: 7,026 kg
• Perigee: 291 km
• Apogee: 299 km
• Inclination: 57.0°
• Period: 90.4 min

Mission Highlights

The primary payload of the flight was the Atmospheric Laboratory for Applications and Science-2 (ATLAS-2), designed to collect data on the relationship between the sun's energy output and Earth's middle atmosphere and how these factors affect the ozone layer. It included six instruments mounted on a Spacelab pallet in the cargo bay, with the seventh mounted on the wall of the bay in two Get Away Special canisters. Atmospheric instruments included the Atmospheric Trace Molecule Spectroscopy (ATMOS) experiment, the Millimeter Wave Atmospheric Sounder (MAS), and the Shuttle Solar Backscatter Ultraviolet/A (SSBUV/A) spectrometer (on the cargo bay wall). Solar science instruments were the Solar Spectrum Measurement (SOLSPEC) instrument, the Solar Ultraviolet Irradiance Monitor (SUSIM), and the Active Cavity Radiometer (ACR) and Solar Constant (SOLCON) experiments.

ATLAS-2 is one element of NASA's Mission to Planet Earth program. All seven ATLAS-2 instruments first flew on ATLAS-I during STS-45, and will fly a third time in late 1994.

On April 11, the crew used the remote manipulator arm to deploy the Shuttle Point Autonomous Research Tool for Astronomy-201 (SPARTAN-201), a free-flying science instrument platform designed to study velocity and acceleration of the solar wind and observe the sun's corona. Collected data was stored on tape for playback after return to Earth. SPARTAN-201 was retrieved on April 13.

The crew also made numerous radio contacts to schools around the world using the Shuttle Amateur Radio Experiment II (SAREX II), including brief radio contact with the Russian Mir space station, the first such contact between Shuttle and Mir using amateur radio equipment.

Other cargo bay payloads were the Solar Ultraviolet Experiment (SUVE), sponsored by Colorado Space Grant Consortium and located in a Get Away Special canister on the cargo bay wall.

The middeck payloads were the Commercial Materials Dispersion Apparatus Instrumentation Technology Associates Experiment (CMIX), the Physiological and Anatomical Rodent Experiment (PARE), Space Tissue Loss (STL-1) experiment, the Cosmic Ray Effects and Activation Monitor (CREAM) experiment. the Hand-held, Earth-oriented, Real-time, Cooperative, User-friendly, Location-targeting and Environmental System (HERCULES), Radiation Monitoring Equipment III (RME III), and an Air Force Maui Optical Site (AMOS) calibration test.

Related articles

• Space science
• Space shuttle
• List of space shuttle missions
• List of human spaceflights chronologically

External links

• NASA mission summary