Ed Campion Headquarters, Washington, D.C. August 25, 1994 (Phone: 202/358-1778) Kyle Herring Johnson Space Center, Houston (Phone: 713/483-5111) RELEASE: 94-142 CHANG-DIAZ NAMED PAYLOAD COMMANDER FOR TSS REFLIGHT Veteran astronaut Franklin Chang-Diaz has been named payload commander for Space Shuttle mission STS-76 -- the second flight of the Tethered Satellite System (TSS) scheduled for early 1996. As payload commander on the 13-day mission, Chang-Diaz, 44, will begin the necessary long-lead preparations required for TSS, which was first flown in July/August 1992 as part of the STS-46 mission. The Italian-built satellite is designed to orbit at the end of a 13-mile-long tether to test techniques for managing spacecraft at great distances and to study the electrodynamic effects of moving a conductive tether through the Earth's magnetic field. STS-76 will be Chang-Diaz's fifth Shuttle mission. He served as mission specialist on STS 61-C in January 1986, STS-34 in October 1989, STS-46, and STS-60 in February 1994. He received a bachelor of science degree in mechanical engineering from the University of Connecticut in 1973 and a doctorate in applied plasma physics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1977. He was born in San Jose, Costa Rica. - end -