RELEASE: 94-019

ASTRONAUT LINENGER JOINS STS-64 CREW

U.S. Navy Commander Jerry M. Linenger has been added to the crew of STS-64 as a mission specialist. The flight is scheduled for the fall of 1994 aboard Discovery.

Linenger joins USN Captain Richard N. "Dick" Richards, Commander; USAF Colonel L. Blaine Hammond, Pilot; and mission specialists USAF Colonel Carl J. Meade, USAF Lt. Col. Mark C. Lee and USAF Lt. Col. Susan J. Helms all named to the crew in November 1993.

The assignment was made to more efficiently distribute the crew workload for this complex flight, which in addition to payload operations, includes a rendezvous and proximity operations and a spacewalk. The experience gained by Dr. Linenger on this mission also will be of great value in on-going human physiology investigations, said Astronaut Office Chief Robert L. "Hoot" Gibson.

The STS-64 mission will carry the LIDAR In-Space Technology Experiment (LITE), the Robot Operated Materials Processing System (ROMPS) and the Shuttle Pointed Autonomous Research Tool for Astronomy (SPARTAN-201).

LITE will measure atmospheric parameters from a space platform utilizing laser sensors. ROMPS will investigate robot handling of thin film samples. SPARTAN is a free-flying retrievable x-ray astronomy platform.

Linenger, 39, is a member of the astronaut class of 1992 and will be making his first space flight. He received a bachelor of science degree in bioscience from the U.S. Naval Academy in 1977 a doctorate in medicine from Wayne State University in 1981 a master of science degree in systems management from University of Southern California in 1988 a master of public health degree in health policy and a doctor of

philosophy degree in epidemiology from the University of North Carolina in 1989. Linenger was born in Mt. Clemens, Mich., but considers Eastpointe, Mich., and Coronado, Calif., to be his hometowns.

text-only version of this release