STS-56

Kenneth D. Cameron

• Birthday: 11/29/1949
• Role: Commander
• Nationality: American
• First Flight: 04/05/1991
• Last Flight: 11/12/1995

Kenneth Donald is a retired American naval aviator, test pilot, engineer, U.S. Marine Corps officer, and NASA astronaut.

Stephen S. Oswald

• Birthday: 06/30/1951
• Role: Pilot
• Nationality: American
• First Flight: 01/22/1992
• Last Flight: 03/02/1995

Stephen Scot Oswald is a former NASA astronaut.

Ellen Ochoa

• Birthday: 05/10/1958
• Role: Mission Specialist
• Nationality: American
• First Flight: 04/08/1993
• Last Flight: 04/08/2002

Ellen Ochoa is an American engineer, former astronaut and the current Director of the Johnson Space Center. Ochoa became director of the center upon the retirement of the previous director, Michael Coats, on December 31, 2012. In 1993 Ochoa became the first Hispanic woman in the world to go to space when she served on a nine-day mission aboard the shuttle Discovery.

Kenneth Cockrell

• Birthday: 04/09/1950
• Role: Mission Specialist
• Nationality: American
• First Flight: 04/08/1993
• Last Flight: 06/05/2002

Kenneth Dale “Taco” Cockrell is an American astronaut and a veteran of five space shuttle missions.

Michael Foale

• Birthday: 01/06/1957
• Role: Mission Specialist
• Nationality: American
• First Flight: 03/24/1992
• Last Flight: 10/18/2003

Colin Michael Foale CBE is a British-American astrophysicist and former NASA astronaut. He is a veteran of six space missions, and is the only NASA astronaut to have flown extended missions aboard both Mir and the International Space Station. He was the first Briton to perform a space walk, and until 17 April 2008, he held the record for most time spent in space by a US citizen: 374 days, 11 hours, 19 minutes. He still holds the cumulative-time-in-space record for a UK citizen.

STS-56

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

STS-56 was a Space Shuttle Discovery mission to perform special experiments. The mission was launched from Kennedy Space Center, Florida, on 8 April 1993.

Launch Complex 39B

Kennedy Space Center, FL, USA

Launch Complex 39B has witnessed the launch of 58 rockets, including 57 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.