Kirsten Williams
Headquarters, Washington DC               February 18, 2000
(Phone:  202/358-0243)

Doug Peterson
Johnson Space Center, Houston, TX
(Phone:  281/483-5111)

RELEASE: 00-29

CREWS NAMED TO CONTINUE SPACE STATION ASSEMBLY

     Veteran Shuttle commanders James Halsell (Col., USAF) and 
Terrence Wilcutt (Lt. Col., USMC) will lead the next two Space 
Shuttle missions to continue on-orbit assembly of the 
International Space Station NASA managers announced today, as they 
officially added Shuttle mission STS-106 to the manifest. 

     Halsell will lead a crew of seven on the STS-101 mission, 
which is scheduled to launch aboard Space Shuttle Atlantis no 
earlier than April 13.  Pilot Scott Horowitz (Lt. Col., USAF) and 
mission specialists Mary Ellen Weber (Ph.D.) and Jeffrey Williams 
(Lt. Col., USA) will remain as part of the STS-101 crew.  
Completing the STS-101 crew are mission specialists James Voss 
(Col., USA), Susan Helms (Lt. Col., USAF), and cosmonaut Yuri V. 
Usachev, who all later will serve as the second resident 
International Space Station crew.

     Three mission specialists previously assigned to STS-101, Ed 
Lu (Ph.D.) and cosmonauts Yuri Malenchenko (Col., Russian Air 
Force) and Boris Marukov (M.D.), will move to the STS-106 mission 
to perform tasks linked to the planned July arrival of the 
Russian-built service module.

     Wilcutt will lead the seven-member crew on the STS-106 
mission, which is scheduled to launch aboard Space Shuttle 
Atlantis no earlier than August 19.  Joining Wilcutt, Lu, 
Malenchenko and Marukov are pilot Scott Altman (Lt. Cmdr., USN) 
and mission specialists Richard Mastracchio and Dan Burbank (Lt. 
Cmdr., USCG).  STS-106 will be the first space flight for Burbank 
and Mastracchio, members of the 1996 class of astronauts.

     The original mission objectives for STS-101 have been 
distributed between the two missions, with the STS-101 crew 
preparing the space station for the arrival of the Zvezda service 
module by conducting one spacewalk, performing some maintenance 
tasks on board the station, and delivering a variety of logistics 
and supplies to the orbiting outpost.  The STS-106 astronauts, 
scheduled to visit the space station following the arrival of 
Zvezda, will conduct at least one spacewalk to perform tasks 
linked to the presence of the service module.  They will also 
transfer various supplies to outfit the station in preparation for 
the arrival of the first long-duration crew.

     In addition to these assignments, European Space Agency 
astronaut Umberto Guidoni (Ph.D.) has been named to the crew of 
STS-100, which will carry the Multi-Purpose Logistics Module 
(Raffaello), provided by the Italian Space Agency for the space 
station.  Guidoni joins Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield (Col., 
Canadian Air Force) and Scott Parazynski (Ph.D.), who previously 
were named to the flight.

For complete biographical information on these crewmembers or any 
other astronaut, see the NASA Internet astronaut biography home 
page at URL:

                http://www.jsc.nasa.gov/Bios

                             -end-