STS-63

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.

Eileen Collins

• Birthday: 11/19/1956
• Role: Pilot
• Nationality: American
• First Flight: 02/03/1995
• Last Flight: 07/26/2005

Eileen Marie Collins is a retired NASA astronaut and a retired United States Air Force colonel. A former military instructor and test pilot, Collins was the first female pilot and first female commander of a Space Shuttle. She was awarded several medals for her work. Colonel Collins has logged 38 days 8 hours and 20 minutes in outer space. Collins retired on May 1, 2006, to pursue private interests, including service as a board member of USAA.

Bernard Harris

• Birthday: 06/26/1956
• Role: Mission Specialist
• Nationality: American
• First Flight: 04/26/1993
• Last Flight: 02/03/1995

Bernard Anthony Harris Jr. is a former NASA astronaut. On February 9, 1995, Harris became the first African American to perform an extra-vehicular activity (spacewalk), during the second of his two Space Shuttle flights.

Janice E. Voss

• Birthday: 10/08/1956
• Role: Mission Specialist
• Nationality: American
• First Flight: 06/21/1993
• Last Flight: 02/11/2000

Janice Elaine Voss was an American engineer and a NASA astronaut. She flew in space five times, jointly holding the record for American women. Voss died on February 6, 2012, from breast cancer.

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.

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-63

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

STS-63 was the first mission of the US/Russian Shuttle-Mir Program, which carried out the first rendezvous of the American Space Shuttle with Russia’s space station Mir. Known as the ‘Near-Mir’ mission, the flight used Space Shuttle Discovery, which lifted off from launch pad 39B on 3 February 1995 from Kennedy Space Center, Florida.

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.