Space Transport System STS-62
Mission Objectives:
The 14-day mission is the latest in a series of Extended
Duration Orbiter (EDO) flights which will provide additional
information for on-going
... medical studies that assess the impact
of long-duration spaceflight, 10 or more days, on astronaut
health, identify any operational medical concerns and test
countermeasures for the adverse effects of weightlessness on
human physiology.
The United States Microgravity Payload (USMP) will be making its
second flight aboard the Space Shuttle. The USMP flights are
regularly scheduled on Shuttle missions to permit scientists
access to space for microgravity and fundamental science
experiments which cannot be duplicated on Earth and provide the
foundation for advanced scientific investigations that will be
done on the international space station.
The Office of Aeronautics and Space Technology (OAST-2) payload
contains six experiments that will obtain technology data to
support future needs for advanced satellites, sensors,
microcircuits and the space station. Data gathered by the OAST-2
experiments could lead to satellites and spacecraft that are
cheaper, more reliable and able to operate more efficiently.
STS-62 will help scientists calibrate sensitive ozone- detecting
instruments with the sixth flight of the Shuttle Solar
Backscatter Ultraviolet (SSBUV) Instrument. This highly
calibrated tool is used to check data from ozone-measuring
instruments on free-flying satellites -- NASA's Total Ozone
Mapping Spectrometer (TOMS) and Upper Atmosphere Research
Satellite (UARS) and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric
Administration NOAA-9 and NOAA-11 satellites.
The Protein Crystal Growth (PCG) experiments and the Commercial
Protein Crystal Growth (CPCG) experiments aboard Columbia will
help scientists understand the growth of crystals to study the
complex molecular structures of important proteins. By knowing
the structure of specific proteins, scientists can design new
drug treatments for humans and animals and develop new or better
food crops.
NASA's efforts in the important field of biotechnology are
represented by the fourth flight of the Physiological Systems
Experiment which is designed to evaluate pharmaceutical,
agricultural or biotechnological products, and the first flight
of the Biotechnology Specimen Temperature Controller (BSTC),
designed to test the performance of a temperature control device
being developed for use with the Bioreactor, a cell- culture
growth device. Also flying again on the Shuttle is the
Commercial Generic Bioprocessing Apparatus (CGBA) payload which
will support more than 15 commercial life science investigations
that have application in biomaterials, biotechnology, medicine
and agriculture.
The Middeck 0-Gravity Dynamics Experiment (MODE) will make its
second flight on STS-62. MODE investigates how the microgravity
of space flight influences the behavior of large space
structures. The MODE test article can be configured in different
shapes typical of space structural forms-- the truss of a space
station, for example -- to help engineers develop and verify an
analytical modeling capability for predicting the linear and
nonlinear modal characteristics of space structures in a
microgravity environment. MODE also will gather force
measurements of nominal, crew-induced disturbance loads on the
Shuttle.
Astronauts will demonstrate a new magnetic end effector and
grapple fixture design for the Shuttle's Canadian-built robot
arm that engineers believe will increase the arm's dexterity and
alignment accuracy, provide operators with a sense of touch and
allow the use of more compact "handles" on satellites and other
Shuttle payloads.
Additional information available at
http://science.ksc.nasa.gov/shuttle/missions/sts-62/mission-sts-62....
[Summary provided by NASA] 
