. The first Shuttle flight of 1997 was made with Atlantis, launched on January 12 with commander Michael Baker and a crew
of five aboard. The Shuttle docked with Mir two days later. Astronaut Jerry Linenger took Blaha's place aboard the Russian craft, and various supplies and logistical items were exchanged. On Atlantis the crew assembled an exercise treadmill that proved to be a successful damper of vibrations that would otherwise interfere with onboard experiments. The Shuttle landed on January 22, and Blaha agreed to leave the vehicle by stretcher so that the medical effects of a longterm stay in space could be more thoroughly observed. On Feb. 11, 1997, the 82d Shuttle
mission began with the launch of Discovery,
commanded by Kenneth Bowersox. His crew of six other astronauts included five mission specialists who carried out the retrieval and repair of the Hubble Space Telescope, installing a near-infrared camera, multi-object spectrometer, and imaging spectrograph, and repairing the telescope's insulation. The Shuttle returned to Earth on February 21. The following mission, commanded by James Halsell and a crew of six other astronauts aboard Columbia, was a disappointment. Many studies of phenomena under conditions of zero gravity were planned, using special equipment, but the Shuttle, launched on April 4, had to return to Earth on April 8 because of the failure of one of its fuel cells. The 84th Shuttle flight, and the 19th flight of Atlantis, began on May 15. The seven-person crew commanded by Charles Precourt included Jean-Franois Clervoy and Elena Kondakova, the former a French astronaut from the European Space Agency and the latter a Russian cosmonaut from the Russian Space Agency. Atlantis docked with the Russian space station Mir, where waiting astronaut Jerry Linenger was replaced by Michael Foale. The Shuttle also brought needed supplies to the station and took other materials back to Earth, landing on May 25. The next flight (numbered, out of sequence, as STS-94) started on July 1. It was the first mission to be flown on the same Shuttle (Columbia) with the same crew (that of mission 83). They carried out the same program of studying phenomena under weightless conditions that was aborted by a fuel-cell problem the first time around, then landed safely on July 17. Mission 85 got under way on August 7 when Discovery was launched to conduct a science mission. The crew of six, commanded by Curtis Brown, released a satellite for studying the ozone layer. They later retrieved it using a Japanese robot arm being tested as a prototype for such devices on the future international space station. The September 25-October 5 mission of Atlantis, commanded by James Wetherbee with his crew of six, carried a Spacehab double module when it docked with the troubled Mir. Aboard were experiments that were transferred to the space station, along with needed supplies and a replacement computer. David Wolf took the place of Michael Foale, who returned gladly to Earth after having gone through several crisis days with the Mir cosmonauts when the craft experienced a fire, was struck by a Progress cargo vessel, and suffered several computer failures. The final 1997 mission took place November 19ÐDecember 5 aboard Columbia. Commander Kevin Kriegel and his crew of five other members conducted microgravity tests and carried out two space walks to practice space station construction techniques, include the release of a robotic camera. The Spartan solar-study satellite that they released and retrieved malfunctioned, however. The first Shuttle mission of 1998, flown on January 22Ð31 aboard Endeavour and commanded by Terrence Wilcutt and a crew of six, was primarily a Mir resupply mission that also exchanged astronaut James Thomas for Wolf. Thomas, who had problems fitting into his suitÑhe solved themÑreceived some unexpectedly sharp words from Russian ground control for this and for his unfamiliarity with the Russian language. The second mison of the year, a life-science research effort flown aboard Columbia on April 17ÐMay 3, was commanded by Richard Searfoss, with a crew of six. A Neurolab aboard the Spacelab was used to study the effects of microgravity on the brains and nervous systems of humans and experimental animals, including sleep-pattern effects. The program, although successful, was marked by an unexpected number of deaths among young animals. On June 2Ð12 the last Shuttle mission to Mir was conducted by means of Discovery, commanded by Charlie Precourt and his crew of five other astronauts. The main purpose of the flight was to pick up Andrew Thomas and return him to Earth, but using SpaceHab and a Space Experiment Module the crews also conducted microgravity experiments testing both human and technological systems. The following mission, flown on Discovery on October 29ÐNovember 7, was commanded by Curtis Brown. His crew of six most notably included the 77-year-old John H. Glenn, Jr., who in 1962 had been the first American astronaut to orbit Earth and now became the world's oldest human in space.