|NASA Glenn Research Center participation in Shuttle-Mir Missions|
Between March 1995 and June 1998, NASA and Russian scientists conducted experiments and demonstrations in the Russian Space Station Mir, a science laboratory in space. NASA-Mir scientists sought to answer vital questions about how humans, animals and plants function in space, how our solar system originated and developed, how we can build better technology in space, and how we can build future space stations.|
Image right: Mir Complex. Credit: NASA
NASA Glenn (formerly Lewis) leads NASA's research in the microgravity science disciplines of fluid physics, combustion science, and some materials science. Almost every Shuttle mission has an experiment managed by Glenns' Microgravity Science Division. This activity has now been expanded to include the Shuttle-Mir missions. A series of Glenn experiments are being sent to Mir so investigations can be conducted by US astronauts residing on Mir. In all, over a dozen Glenn micogravity science experiments will be conducted.
Image left: Shannon Lucid at Glenn. Credit: NASA
According to a rough approximation (at a rate of 17,500 mi/hr or 420,000 mi/day) SAMS will have logged 580,000,000 (over a half a billion) miles when it returns to Earth aboard the STS-91 mission in June of 1998. That distance is about three round trips to the sun! Or, starting at the Sun, this would take the SAMS unit to somewhere between Jupiter and Saturn. Launched on August 25, 1994 on a Progress vehicle, SAMS has been the longest-operating US hardware on Mir.
Glenn is managing the Mir Cooperative Solar Array (MCSA) which was delivered to Mir by Atlantis during STS-74 in November 1995. Russian cosmonauts Yuri Onufrienko and Yuri Usachev successfully moved the MCSA to the Kvant-1 module on May 20 and deployment was accomplished on May 25, 1996.
Image right: MCSA. Credit: NASA
Space Environment Effects
Glenns' Electro-Physics Branch contributed six samples to the Optical Properties Monitor (OPM) experiment. It was launched onboard STS-81 Atlantis in January 1997 and depolyed during the first joint American-Russian space walk outside of Mir on April 29, 1997. OPM was mounted to the Mir Docking Module where it collected data about the space station's environment for almost a year.
OPM was returned to Earth aboard Endeavour as part of the STS-89 mission in January 1998. Once the Glenn samples are returned to Cleveland, we will make post flight measurements and comparing pre and post flight characteristics, including: mass, optical properties, atomic oxygen degradation and other physical properties. The results of the data collected are predicted to impact all future long-term spacecraft and particularly the development and operation of the International Space Station.(ISS).
Image left: OPM Carousel. Credit: NASA.
- GRC Contributions to the Space Shuttle
- GRC Contributions to International Space Station
As of March 1, 1999 the Lewis Research Center is officially renamed the NASA John H. Glenn Research Center at Lewis Field.
NASA Glenn Research Center