 Endeavour's Canadarm positions Zarya above Unity, immediately prior to mating | |
| Names | Space Transportation System-88 |
|---|---|
| Mission type | ISS assembly |
| Operator | NASA |
| COSPAR ID | 1998-069A |
| SATCAT no. | 25549 |
| Mission duration | 11 days, 19 hours, 18 minutes, 47 seconds. |
| Distance travelled | 7,600,000 kilometers (4,700,000 mi) |
| Orbits completed | 186 |
| Spacecraft properties | |
| Spacecraft | Space Shuttle Endeavour |
| Launch mass | 119,715 kilograms (263,927 lb) |
| Landing mass | 90,853 kilograms (200,296 lb) |
| Crew | |
| Crew size | 6 |
| Members | |
| Start of mission | |
| Launch date | 4 December 1998, 08:35:34 UTC[1] |
| Launch site | Kennedy, LC-39A |
| End of mission | |
| Landing date | 16 December 1998, 03:53 UTC |
| Landing site | Kennedy, SLF Runway 15 |
| Orbital parameters | |
| Reference system | Geocentric |
| Regime | Low Earth |
| Perigee altitude | 388 kilometres (241 mi) |
| Apogee altitude | 401 kilometres (249 mi) |
| Inclination | 51.6 degrees |
| Period | 92.4 minutes |
| Docking with ISS | |
| Docking port | Zarya forward (via PMA-2, Unity and PMA-1) |
| Docking date | 7 December 1998, 02:07 UTC |
| Undocking date | 13 December 1998, 20:24 UTC |
| Time docked | 6 days, 18 hours 17 minutes |
 Left to right – Front: Krikalev, Currie; Back: Ross, Cabana, Sturckow, Newman | |
STS-88 was the first Space Shuttle mission to the International Space Station (ISS). It was flown by Space Shuttle Endeavour, and took the first American module, the Unity node, to the station.[2]
The seven-day mission was highlighted by the mating of the U.S.-built Unity node to the Functional Cargo Block (Zarya module) already in orbit, and three spacewalks to connect power and data transmission cables between the Node and the FGB. Zarya, built by Boeing and the Russian Space Agency, was launched on a Russian Proton rocket from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan in November 1998.[1]
Other payloads on the STS-88 mission included the IMAX Cargo Bay Camera (ICBC), the Argentine Scientific Applications Satellite-S (SAC-A), the MightySat 1 Hitchhiker payload, the Space Experiment Module (SEM-07) and Getaway Special G-093 sponsored by the University of Michigan.[3]
- ^ a b NASA (1998). "STS-88 Mission Control Center Status Report # 2". NASA. Retrieved 6 October 2008.
- ^ NASA (1998). "STS-88 (93)". NASA. Archived from the original on 6 June 2011. Retrieved 6 October 2008.
- ^ shuttlepresskit.com (1998). "IMAX Cargo Bay Camera (ICBC)". Boeing/NASA/United Space Alliance. Retrieved 6 October 2008.