RELEASE: 93-070

CREW MEMBERS SELECTED FOR STS-63 SHUTTLE SPACEHAB-3 FLIGHT

USN Commander James D. Wetherbee will command the STS-63 mission

aboard Discovery in mid-1994. Other crew members are USAF Lieutenant Colonel

Eileen M. Collins as Pilot and mission specialists C. Michael Foale, Ph.D.; Janice E. Voss, Ph.D.; Bernard A. Harris, Jr., M.D.; and Russian Air Force Colonel

Vladimir G. Titov.

The STS-63 mission will include the third flight of Spacehab, the deployment and retrieval of the Spartan-201, and a first-ever rendezvous with the Russian Space Station Mir. Spacehab is a commercially-owned pressurized module for human-tended experiments.

Spartan-201, the Shuttle Pointed Autonomous Research Tool for Astronomy,

is a free-flying retrievable platform with two telescopes to study the solar wind,

a continuous stream of electrons, heavy protons and heavy ions ejected from the

sun and traveling through space at speeds of almost 1 million miles per hour.

The solar wind frequently causes problems on Earth by disrupting navigation,

communications and electrical power.

Wetherbee, 40, commanded STS-52, a 10-day mission that deployed the

Laser Geodynamic Satellite, operated the first U.S. Microgravity Payload with

French and American experiments and tested the Canadian-built Space Vision

System aboard Columbia in October 1992.

He also was pilot on STS-32 aboard Columbia in January 1990, a mission that

deployed the Syncom IV-F5 satellite and retrieved the Long Duration Exposure

Facility. Wetherbee was born in Flushing, N.Y., and received a bachelor of

science degree in aerospace engineering from the University of Notre Dame in

1974.

-2-

Collins, 36, is the first female to serve as a pilot on a Space Shuttle mission.

She was born in Elmira, N.Y., and received a master of science degree in

operations research from Stanford University in 1986 and a master of arts

degree in space systems management from Webster University in 1989.

Foale, 36, was a mission specialist on STS-45, the first ATLAS flight, in

March 1992 and on STS-56 in April 1993, which carried ATLAS-2 and the

SPARTAN retrievable satellite. Foale was born in Louth, England, but considers

Cambridge his hometown. He received his doctorate in laboratory astrophysics

from Cambridge University in 1982.

Voss, 36, was a mission specialist on STS-57 in June 1993, on which the

first SPACEHAB commercial middeck augmentation module was flown and the

European Retrievable Carrier satellite was retrieved.

Voss was born in South Bend, Ind., but considers Rockford, Ill., her hometown. She received a doctorate in aeronautics/astronautics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1987 and has done additional graduate work in space physics at Rice University.

Harris, 37, was a mission specialist on the STS-55 Spacelab D-2, dedicated

to German scientific experiments, in April 1993. Harris was born in Temple,

Texas. He received his doctorate in medicine from Texas Tech University

School of Medicine in 1982, completing his residency in internal medicine at

the Mayo Clinic in 1985. He trained as a flight surgeon at the Aerospace School

of Medicine, Brooks Air Force Base, San Antonio, Texas, in 1988.

Titov, 46, was born in Sretensk, in the Chita Region of Russia and graduated

from the Higher Air Force College in Chernigov in the Ukraine in 1970 and the

Yuri Gagarin Air Force Academy in 1987.

Titov commanded Soyuz T-8 in April 1983, a mission to dock with and repair the faulty Salyut 7 solar array. The mission was aborted after 2 days to avoid a crash when the rendezvous closing rate was determined to be too fast.

Titov commanded Soyuz TM-4, launched in December 1987, which docked with the orbiting Mir 1 space station. Titov spent 365 days, 22 hours, 39 minutes in space, setting a long-duration world record. He also performed two spacewalks during his mission. Titov was selected in October 1992 as one of two cosmonauts to train for Space Shuttle missions.

text-only version of this release