STS-94

Key takeaways

STS-94 belongs to science; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect STS-94 to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of STS-94 from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

STS-94 was a mission of the United States Space Shuttle Columbia, launched on 1 July 1997.

Crew

STS-94 was flown by the same crew that flew STS-83, the only time in the history of human spaceflight that two missions with more than one crewmember had exactly the same crew.

Crew seat assignments

Mission highlights

This was a reflight of the STS-83 Microgravity Science Laboratory (MSL) mission. MSL was originally launched on 4 April 1997 at 2:20 pm EST and was intended to be on orbit for 15 days, 16 hours. The mission was cut short due to a problem with Fuel Cell #2 and Columbia landed on 8 April 1997 after 3 days 23 hours. The primary payload on STS-83 was the Microgravity Science Laboratory (MSL). MSL was a collection of microgravity experiments housed inside a European Spacelab Long Module (LM). It built on the cooperative and scientific foundation of the International Microgravity Laboratory missions (IML-1 on STS-42 and IML-2 on STS-65), the United States Microgravity Laboratory missions (USML-1 on STS-50 and USML-2 on STS-73), the Japanese Spacelab mission (Spacelab-J on STS-47), the Spacelab Life and Microgravity Science Mission (LMS on STS-78) and the German Spacelab missions (D-1 on STS-61-A and D-2 on STS-55). MSL featured 19 materials science investigations in 4 major facilities. These facilities were the Large Isothermal Furnace, the EXpedite the PRocessing of Experiments to the Space Station (EXPRESS) Rack, the Electromagnetic Containerless Processing Facility (TEMPUS) and the Coarsening in Solid-Liquid Mixtures (CSLM) facility, the Droplet Combustion Experiment (DCE) and the Combustion Module-1 Facility. Additional technology experiments were to be performed in the Middeck Glovebox (MGBX) developed by the Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC) and the High-Packed Digital Television (HI-PAC DTV) system was used to provide multi-channel real-time analog science video. The Large Isothermal Furnace was developed by the Japanese Space Agency (NASDA) for the STS-47 Spacelab-J mission and was also flown on STS-65 IML-2 mission. It housed the Measurement of Diffusion Coefficient by Shear Cell Method Experiment, the Diffusion of Liquid Metals and Alloys Experiment, the Diffusion in Liquid Led-Tin-Telluride Experiment, the Impurity Diffusion in Ionic Melts Experiment, the Liquid Phase Sintering II Experiment (LIF), and the Diffusion Processes in Molten Semiconductors Experiment (DPIMS). The Combustion Module-1 (CM-1) facility from the NASA Lewis Research Center housed experiments on Laminar Soot Processes Experiment and the Structure of Flame Balls at Low Lewis-number Experiment (SOFBALL). The Droplet Combustion Experiment (DCE) is designed to investigate the fundamental combustion aspects of single, isolated droplets under different pressures and ambient oxygen concentrations for a range of droplet sizes varying between 2 millimetres (0.079 in) and 5 millimetres (0.20 in). The DCE apparatus is integrated into a single width MSL Spacelab rack in the cargo bay.

The EXPRESS rack replaces a Spacelab Double rack and special hardware will provide the same structural and resource connections the rack will have on the Space Station. It will house the Physics of Hard Spheres (PHaSE) experiment and the Astro/PGBA Experiment. The Electromagnetic Containerless Processing Facility (TEMPUS) is used for the Experiments on Nucleation in Different Flow Regimes, Thermophysical Properties of Advanced Materials in the Undercooled Liquid State Experiment, Measurements of the Surface Tension of Liquid and Undercooled Metallic Alloys by Oscillating Drop Technique Experiment, Alloy Undercooling Experiments, the Study of the Morphological Stability of Growing Dendrites by Comparative Dendrite Velocity Measurements on Pure Ni and Dilute Ni–C Alloy in the Earth and Space Laboratory Experiment, the Undercooled Melts of Alloys with Polytetrahedral Short-Range Order Experiment, the Thermal Expansion of Glass Forming Metallic Alloys in the Undercooled State Experiment, the AC Calorimetry and Thermophysical Properties of Bulk Glass-Forming Metallic Liquids experiment and the Measurement of Surface Tension and Viscosity of Undercooled Liquid Metals experiment. There were also experiments on measuring microgravity. They included the Space Acceleration Measurement System (SAMS), the Microgravity Measurement Assembly (MMA), the Quasi-Steady Acceleration Measurement System and the Orbital Acceleration Research Experiment (OARE). The Middeck Glovebox (MGBX) facility supported the Bubble and Drop Nonlinear Dynamics (BDND) Experiment, the Study of the Fundamental Operation of a Capillary-driven Heat Transfer (CHT) Device in Microgravity Experiment, the Internal Flows in a Free Drop (IFFD) experiment and the Fiber Supported Droplet Combustion experiment (FSDC-2).

Illustrations

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with STS-94

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what STS-94 claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In science, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to STS-94 before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about STS-94 ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of STS-94

In research: STS-94 appears in science research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses STS-94 in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: STS-94 is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics Space Shuttle missions, Spacecraft launched in 1997, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for STS-94 outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

How to study STS-94 in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what STS-94 means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain STS-94 out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is STS-94 in simple terms?

STS-94 was a mission of the United States Space Shuttle Columbia, launched on 1 July 1997. Crew STS-94 was flown by the same crew that flew STS-83, the only time in the history of human spaceflight that two missions with more than one crewmember had exactly the same crew.

Why does STS-94 matter?

Because it connects several science ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study STS-94?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on STS-94.