Launch from Cape Canaveral (
KSC);
landing on Edwards
AFB. A launch set for November 19, 1991 was delayed
due to replacing and testing a malfunctioning redundant inertial measurement
unit on the Inertial Upper Stage booster attached to the Defense Support
Program satellite. The launch was reset for November 24, 1991 and was delayed
13 minutes to allow an orbiting spacecraft to pass and to allow external tank
liquid oxygen replenishment after minor repairs to a valve in the liquid oxygen
replenishment system in the mobile launcher platform.
The mission was
dedicated to the Department of Defense. The unclassified payload included a
Defense Support Program (DSP) satellite and attached Inertial Upper Stage
(IUS), deployed on flight day one. Cargo bay and middeck payloads included the
Interim Operational Contamination Monitor (IOCM), Terra Scout, Military Man in
Space (M88-1), Air Force Maui Optical System (AMOS), Cosmic Radiation Effects
and Activation Monitor (CREAM), Shuttle Activation Monitor (SAM), Radiation
Monitoring Equipment III (RME III), Visual Function Tester-1 (VFT-1),
Ultraviolet Plume Instrument (UVPI), Bioreactor Flow, Particle Trajectory
experiment, and Extended Duration Orbiter Medical Project, a series of
investigations in support of Extended Duration Orbiter.
A
COLA maneuver to fly in save distance to Kosmos 851
launch rocket was needed. The landing was originally scheduled for the Kennedy
Space Center on December 04, 1991 but the ten-days mission was shortened and
the landing rescheduled and diverted to the Edwards
AFB following
the November 30, 1991 on-orbit failure of one of three orbiter inertial
measurement units (IMU 2 = Inertial Measurement Unit).