STS-88

STS-88
Endeavour's Canadarm positions Zarya above Unity, immediately prior to mating
NamesSpace Transportation System-88
Mission typeISS assembly
OperatorNASA
COSPAR ID1998-069A Edit this at Wikidata
SATCAT no.25549
Mission duration11 days, 19 hours, 18 minutes, 47 seconds.
Distance travelled7,600,000 kilometers (4,700,000 mi)
Orbits completed186
Spacecraft properties
SpacecraftSpace Shuttle Endeavour
Launch mass119,715 kilograms (263,927 lb)
Landing mass90,853 kilograms (200,296 lb)
Crew
Crew size6
Members
Start of mission
Launch date4 December 1998, 08:35:34 (1998-12-04UTC08:35:34Z) UTC[1]
Launch siteKennedy, LC-39A
End of mission
Landing date16 December 1998, 03:53 (1998-12-16UTC03:54Z) UTC
Landing siteKennedy, SLF Runway 15
Orbital parameters
Reference systemGeocentric
RegimeLow Earth
Perigee altitude388 kilometres (241 mi)
Apogee altitude401 kilometres (249 mi)
Inclination51.6 degrees
Period92.4 minutes
Docking with ISS
Docking portZarya forward
(via PMA-2, Unity and PMA-1)
Docking date7 December 1998, 02:07 UTC
Undocking date13 December 1998, 20:24 UTC
Time docked6 days, 18 hours 17 minutes

Left to right – Front: Krikalev, Currie; Back: Ross, Cabana, Sturckow, Newman
← STS-95 (92)
STS-96 (94) →

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]

  1. ^ a b NASA (1998). "STS-88 Mission Control Center Status Report # 2". NASA. Retrieved 6 October 2008.
  2. ^ NASA (1998). "STS-88 (93)". NASA. Archived from the original on 6 June 2011. Retrieved 6 October 2008.
  3. ^ shuttlepresskit.com (1998). "IMAX Cargo Bay Camera (ICBC)". Boeing/NASA/United Space Alliance. Retrieved 6 October 2008.