| Category
| Mercury
Capsule | Discovery
Orbiter |
|---|
| Launch | Feb.
20, 1962 | Oct.
29, 1998 |
| Launch
Time | 8:47:39
a.m. CST | 1:19
p.m. CST |
| Site | Launch
Complex 14, Cape Canaveral, Fla. | Launch
Pad 39B, Kennedy Space Center, Fla. |
| Spacecraft | Mercury
Capsule 13, Vehicle Number 109-D | Space
Shuttle Orbiter Vehicle 103 (25th flight) |
| Name | Friendship
7 (one flight) | Discovery
(25 flights as of STS-95) |
| Milestones | Fabrication
begins May 1960; capsule arrives at Cape Canaveral on Aug. 27, 1961;
mated to Atlas booster on pad on Jan. 3, 1962. | Fabrication
of aft fuselage begins July 5, 1977; Crew module fabrication begins
March 3, 1980; Discovery rolls out of Rockwell plant in Palmdale,
Calif. on Oct. 16, 1983; arrives Kennedy Space Center on Nov. 9, 1983;
Flight Readiness Firing of three main engines on June 2, 1984 for
18 seconds; maiden launch on STS-41D mission on Aug. 30, 1984; Discovery
launched on Sept. 29, 1988 on STS-26 mission to mark Shuttle program
return to flight after Challenger accident; For STS-95, Discovery
moves to Launch Pad 39-B in late September 1998; Flight Readiness
Review conducted on Oct. 9, 1998 |
| Countdown | Initial
launch dates of Dec. 20, 1961, Jan. 16, 1962, and Jan. 23, 1962 were
moved to Jan. 27, 1962 when the Mercury-Atlas rocket was finally fueled;
countdown was scrubbed at T-13 minutes by adverse weather; subsequent
launch attempts on Feb. 13, 14, 15, and 16 were also scrubbed by adverse
weather or technical problems and the launch was reset for Feb. 20.
| Began
Oct. 29, 1998 |
| Altitude | 261
x 160 kilometers
(162.2 x 100 statute miles) | 523
kilometers
(325 statute miles) |
| Inclination | 32.54
degrees | 28.45
degrees |
| Orbits | 3
orbits | 134
orbits during STS-95 |
| Orbital
Period | 88
minutes, 29 seconds | About
90 minutes |
| Duration | 4
hours, 55 minutes, 23 seconds |
8 days, 21 hours, 44 minutes |
| Distance
Flown | 121,794
kilometers
(75,679 statute miles) | Approximately
5,793,638 kilometers
(3,600,000 miles) |
| Velocity | 28,234
kilometers
(17,544 miles) per hour | 28,163
kilometers
(17,500 miles) per hour |
| Maximum
G's | 7.7 | 3 |
| Payload |
| Spacehab
Research Module; Hubble Orbital Systems Test Platform (HOST); SPARTAN-201-05
Reflight; International Extreme Ultraviolet Hitchhiker (IEH-03); Getaway
Special Canisters |
| Landing | Feb.
20, 1962, 1:43:02 p.m. CST, 800 miles southeast of Bermuda | Nov.
7, 1998, Kennedy Space Center Shuttle Landing Facility at 11:04 a.m.
CST |
| Recovery | Navy
Destroyer U.S.S. Noa; Friendship 7 hoisted onto the deck 21 minutes
after splashdown | |
| Total
mission time aloft for Mercury program and Shuttle program | 53
hours, 55 minutes, 27 seconds (six missions) | 18,132
hours, 43 minutes, 30 seconds (89 missions) |
| Total
individual spacecraft mileage | 121,793
kilometers
(75,679 statute miles); one mission | 14,223,091
kilometers
(8,837,819 statute miles); 23 Discovery orbiter missions |
| Total
number of spacecraft orbits | 3
orbits | 2,658
orbits (23 Discovery orbiter missions) |
| Maximum
mission duration | 1.5
days | 18+
days |
| Weight | 1,931
kilograms (4.256 pounds); 1,205 kilograms (2,657 pounds) at re-entry | 69,771
kilograms (153,819 pounds) (Orbiter empty but with three Main Engines)
|
| Lift-off
thrust | 360,000
pounds; Atlas Launch Vehicle | 7,000,000
pounds; SSMEs and Solid Rocket Boosters |
| Launch
system | One
and one-half stage liquid propellant Atlas launch vehicle with one
sustainer and two booster engines | Two
solid rocket boosters and three space shuttle main engines fueled
by an external tank |
| Windows | 1 | 10
(six forward, two overhead, two aft) |
| Crew
size | 1 | 2-7 |
| Electrical
power | Battery,
3 primary, 9000 Ah | 3
fuel cells; 7 kilowatts continuous each |
| Electrical
buses | 4 | 110 |
| Circuit
breakers | 20 | 961 |
| Total
measurements (Number of sensors) | 100 | 7,800+ |
| Thermal
control | Cabin
gas cooling, water boiler | Two
Freon-21 coolant loop systems, cold plate networks for cooling avionics
units, liquid/liquid heat exchangers, radiators, flash evaporators,
ammonia boilers |
| Onboard
computers | none | 5
general purpose computers (4 primary and 1 backup) |
| Guidance
and Navigation and attitude reference | Three
gyroscopes, Horizon scanner | Three
inertial measurement units, Star tracker, Radar, Tactical Air Navigation
system, Microwave Scan Beam Landing System |
| Volume
(habitable) | 1
cubic meter
(36 cubic feet) | Crew
compartment of 66 cubic meters (2,325 cubic feet). During Mercury,
a crewmember had 1 cubic meter (36 cubic feet), compared to the 9.4
cubic meters (332 cubic feet) per crewmember aboard Discovery. Discovery's
crew compartment could hold 66 crew members if each was allotted just
1 cubic meter (36 cubic feet). |
| Cabin
atmosphere | 100%
O2 |
21% O2/79% N2 at 14.7 pounds per square inch
or 27% O2/73% N2 at 10.2 pounds per square inch |
| Items
stowed | 48 | about
2,600 |
| Work
stations | 1 | 9 |
| Total
cockpit display components | 143 | 2,312 |
| Toggle
switches | 56 | 856 |
| Pushbutton
switches | 8 | 219 |
| Event
indicators | 19 | 559 |
| Landing
system | 3
solid-fuel rockets for reentry retrofire maneuvers, drag braking,
main and drogue-stabilization parachutes, ocean landing | Traditional
aircraft tricycle configuration with nose landing gear and a left
and right main landing gear; each has a shock strut with two wheel
and tire assemblies; nose gear is steerable |
| Parachute
diameter | Main
parachute: 19.2-meter (63-foot diameter), drogue stabilizer: 1.8-meter
(6-foot) diameter | Drag
chute: 11.9-meter (39-foot diameter) |
| Thermal
protection | Ablative
heatshield on the blunt face and heat-radiating shingles on the afterbody. |
Reinforced carbon-carbon tiles on nose cap and wing leading edges;
High-temperature reusable surface insulation tiles mainly on lower
surface; Low-temperature reusable surface insulation tiles on upper
wing and fuselage side; Advanced flexible reusable surface insulation
-- Coated Nomex felt -- on parts of payload bay doors, sides of fuselage,
and upper wing. |
| Automated
vs. crew control | Although
designed to have automatic control, the pilot's ability to manually
control the spacecraft attitude allowed the mission to be completed
successfully when the automatic system malfunctioned. | Ascent,
orbit, and re-entry are typically automatic. However, rendezvous with
or fly around of another spacecraft is manual. Once the orbiter has
slowed to subsonic speeds after re-entry, the landing is manual. During
automatic mode, the crew usually has the option of switching to manual
operation of the orbiter. |
| Interior
environment | Astronaut
JohnGlenn was restrained by his couch harness assembly and by the
limited space in the interior. Only one stowage compartment was available.
Other items were stowed in bags, in pouches, or on specific attachments
to the interior structure. |
During ascent and descent the crew members are strapped into seats
on either the flight deck or the middeck. The flight deck holds four
persons, while the middeck is usually equipped for three. (STS-71
saw Atlantis bring eight members down, four on each deck.) On orbit,
crewmembers have a free range of movement throughout the crew compartment,
as well as the SPACEHAB in the payload bay. |
