Launch from Cape Canaveral (
KSC);
landing on Edwards
AFB.
This was the mission "Space Radar
Laboratory" (
SRL-1). The crew took radar images of the Earth and
Earth observations photography (more than 14,000 still photographs). In
addition experiments in the areas of biology and physics were carried
out.
During the initial activation of the X-Band Synthetic Aperture
Radar (X-SAR), controllers reported they were unable to fully power up the
amplifier that provides power to the radar. The problem was in the low voltage
circuit internal to the power amplifier. Engineers were not immediately able to
explain the problem, so they turned off the power amplifier for about three
hours. The problem was traced to an oversensitive protection circuit, a type of
circuit breaker. The radar lab engineers bypassed the protection circuit and
turned on the instrument. It worked then without any incident.
The data
recorded during the STS-59 mission would fill the equivalent of 20,000
encyclopedia volumes. Payload managers reported that more than 70 million
square kilometers of the Earth's surface, including land and sea, have been
mapped on this flight. This figure represents about 12 percent of Earth's total
surface. The Space Radar Laboratory obtained radar images of approximately 25
percent of the planet's land surfaces.
Due to clouds and high winds at
Cape Canaveral the mission was extended one day and finally diverted to the
Edwards
AFB.
