#sts-96

[tracyluca]

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO RICK HUSBAND!!!!!!!!!!!! 🎂🎂🎂🎉🎉🎉

[gregorygalloway]

Julie Payette (born 20 October 1963)

[wigmund]

From NASA Image of the Day; October 15, 2018:

Ellen Ochoa at Work on the Shuttle

Floating upside down and reading a checklist may not be how most of us perform the day's work, but it was for astronaut Ellen Ochoa on Space Shuttle Discovery's STS-96 mission in May, 1999. Ochoa floats along side the Volatile Removal Assembly Flight Experiment (VRAFE) located in the Spacehab DM during the flight.

On May 29, Discovery made the first docking to the International Space Station. The Shuttle was eased into a textbook linkup with Unity's Pressurized Mating Adapter #2 as the orbiter and the station flew over the Russian-Kazakh border.

Ochoa, who holds a doctorate in electrical engineering from Stanford University, was the 11th director of the Johnson Space Center from January 2013 to May 2018. She was the center's first Hispanic director, and its second female director. She joined NASA in 1988 as a research engineer at Ames Research Center and moved to Johnson Space Center in 1990 when she was selected as an astronaut. She became the first Hispanic woman to go to space when she served on the nine-day STS-56 mission aboard space shuttle Discovery in 1993. She has flown in space four times, including STS-66, STS-96 and STS-110, logging nearly 1,000 hours in orbit.

During National Hispanic Heritage Month, we're celebrating the achievements of Ochoa and other Hispanic astronauts and professionals at NASA.

Image Credit: NASA

[southwestcollectionarchives]

It’s…Artifact Friday! We recently installed an exhibit, “From Here It’s Possible: West Texas Goes to the Stars!” celebrating Texas Tech alums and others with TTU and West Texas connections who served at NASA as astronauts and administrators. One of those was Rick Husband, who flew the Space Shuttle Discovery on his first mission, STS-96. This model of that shuttle comes from our University Archives.

Here’s some more from our NASA collections over here.

[spacettf]

Clouds and Sunglint over Indian Ocean by NASA on The Commons on Flickr.

Tramite Flickr: Clouds and sunglint as seen during the STS-96 mission from the Space Shuttle Discovery. Image # : STS096-705-066

[spacettf]

View of the ISS during Flyaround by NASA on The Commons on Flickr.

Tramite Flickr: Backdropped against white clouds and blue ocean waters, the International Space Station (ISS) moves away from the Space Shuttle Discovery. The U.S.- built Unity node (top) and the Russian-built Zarya or FGB module (with the solar array panels deployed) were joined during a December 1998 mission. A portion of the work performed on the May 30 space walk by astronauts Tamara E. Jernigan and Daniel T.Barry is evident at various points on the ISS, including the installation of the Russian-built crane (called Strela). Image # : STS096-333-021

[hellyesnasa-blog]

This spectacular photo is of the May 27, 1999 liftoff of the Orbiter Discovery (STS-96).

Photo Credit: NASA