STS-86

Jim Wetherbee

• Birthday: 11/27/1952
• Role: Commander
• Nationality: American
• First Flight: 01/09/1990
• Last Flight: 11/23/2002

James Donald “Wxb” Wetherbee is an American former naval officer and aviator, test pilot, aerospace engineer, and NASA astronaut. He is a veteran of six Space Shuttle missions and is the only American to have commanded five spaceflight missions.

Michael J. Bloomfield

• Birthday: 03/16/1959
• Role: Pilot
• Nationality: American
• First Flight: 09/26/1997
• Last Flight: 04/08/2002

Michael John “Bloomer” Bloomfield is an American former astronaut and a veteran of three Space Shuttle missions.

Jean-Loup Chrétien

• Birthday: 08/20/1938
• Role: Mission Specialist
• Nationality: French
• First Flight: 06/24/1982
• Last Flight: 09/26/1997

Jean-Loup Jacques Marie Chrétien (born 20 August 1938) is a French retired Général de Brigade (brigadier general) in the Armée de l’Air (French air force), and a former CNES spationaut. He flew on two Franco-Soviet space missions and a NASA Space Shuttle mission. Chrétien was the first Frenchman and the first western European in space.

David Wolf

• Birthday: 08/23/1956
• Role: Mission Specialist
• Nationality: American
• First Flight: 10/18/1993
• Last Flight: 07/15/2009

David Alexander Wolf is an American astronaut, medical doctor and electrical engineer. Wolf has been to space four times. Three of his spaceflights were short-duration Space Shuttle missions, the first of which was STS-58 in 1993, and his most recent spaceflight was STS-127 in 2009. Wolf also took part in a long-duration mission aboard the Russian space station Mir which lasted 128 days, and occurred during Mir EO-24. He was brought to Mir aboard STS-86 in September 1997, and landed aboard STS-89 in January 1998. In total Wolf has logged more than 4,040 hours in space. He is also a veteran of 7 spacewalks totaling 41hrs 17min in both Russian and American spacesuits.

Wendy B. Lawrence

• Birthday: 07/02/1959
• Role: Mission Specialist
• Nationality: American
• First Flight: 03/02/1995
• Last Flight: 07/26/2005

Wendy Barrien Lawrence is a retired United States Navy Captain, former helicopter pilot, an engineer, and a former NASA astronaut. She was the first female graduate of the United States Naval Academy to fly into space and she has also visited the Russian Space Station Mir. She was a mission specialist on STS-114, the first Space Shuttle flight after the Space Shuttle Columbia disaster.

Scott E. Parazynski

• Birthday: 07/28/1961
• Role: Mission Specialist
• Nationality: American
• First Flight: 11/03/1994
• Last Flight: 10/23/2007

Scott Edward Parazynski is an American physician and a former NASA astronaut. A veteran of five Space Shuttle flights and seven spacewalks, Parazynski’s latest mission was STS-120 in October, 2007 – highlighted by a dramatic, unplanned EVA to repair a live solar array. In May 2016 he was inducted into the US Astronaut Hall of Fame. He retired from NASA in March 2009 to pursue entrepreneurial opportunities in the private sector, and he is currently the CEO of a technology start-up. He is the first person to have both flown in space and summited Mount Everest, the highest point on Earth.

Vladimir Georgiyevich Titov

• Birthday: 01/01/1947
• Role: Mission Specialist
• Nationality: Russian
• First Flight: 04/20/1983
• Last Flight: 09/26/1997

Vladimir Georgiyevich Titov (Russian: Владимир Георгиевич Титов; born 1 January 1947 in Sretensk, Zabaykalsky Krai, Russia) is a retired Russian Air Force Colonel and former cosmonaut. He has participated in four spaceflight missions. The catastrophic explosion of a Soyuz rocket in 1983 led to him being one of only two people to use a launch escape system.

STS-86

• Type: Human Exploration
• Orbit: Low Earth Orbit
• Launch Cost: $450,000,000

STS-86 was a Space Shuttle Atlantis mission to the Mir space station. This was the last Atlantis mission before it was taken out of service temporarily for maintenance and upgrades, including the glass cockpit.

Launch Complex 39A

Kennedy Space Center, FL, USA

Launch Complex 39A has witnessed the launch of 174 rockets, including 173 orbital launch attempts, while Kennedy Space Center, FL, USA, has been the site for 232 rocket launches.

National Aeronautics and Space Administration Space Shuttle

The Space Shuttle is a retired, partially reusable low Earth orbital spacecraft system operated from 1981 to 2011 by the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) as part of the Space Shuttle program. Its official program name was Space Transportation System (STS). Five complete Space Shuttle orbiter vehicles were built and flown on a total of 135 missions from 1981 to 2011.

United Space Alliance

United Space Alliance (USA) is a spaceflight operations company. USA is a joint venture which was established in August 1995 as a Limited Liability Company (LLC), equally owned by Boeing and Lockheed Martin.