STS-61

Richard O. Covey

• Birthday: 08/01/1946
• Role: Commander
• Nationality: American
• First Flight: 08/27/1985
• Last Flight: 12/02/1993

Richard Oswalt Covey is a retired United States Air Force officer and former NASA astronaut.

Ken Bowersox

• Birthday: 11/14/1956
• Role: Pilot
• Nationality: American
• First Flight: 06/25/1992
• Last Flight: 11/23/2002

Kenneth Dwane “Sox” Bowersox is a United States Navy officer, and a former NASA astronaut. He is a veteran of five Space Shuttle launches and an extended stay aboard the International Space Station. When he launched on STS-73 at the age of 38 years and 11 months, he became the youngest person ever to command a Space Shuttle vehicle.

Claude Nicollier

• Birthday: 09/02/1944
• Role: Mission Specialist
• Nationality: Swiss
• First Flight: 07/31/1992
• Last Flight: 12/20/1999

Claude Nicollier is the first astronaut from Switzerland. He has flown on four Space Shuttle missions. His first spaceflight (STS-46) was in 1992, and his final spaceflight (STS-103) was in 1999. He took part in two servicing missions to the Hubble Space Telescope (called STS-61 and STS-103). During his final spaceflight he participated in a spacewalk, becoming the first European Space Agency astronaut to do so during a Space Shuttle mission. In 2000 he was assigned to the Astronaut Office Extravehicular Activity Branch, while maintaining a position as Lead ESA Astronaut in Houston. Nicollier retired from ESA in April 2007.

Kathryn C. Thornton

• Birthday: 08/17/1952
• Role: Mission Specialist
• Nationality: American
• First Flight: 11/23/1989
• Last Flight: 10/20/1995

Kathryn Ryan Cordell Thornton is an American scientist and a former NASA astronaut with over 975 hours in space, including 21 hours of extravehicular activity. She was the associate dean for graduate programs at the University of Virginia School of Engineering and Applied Science, currently a professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering.

Thomas Akers

• Birthday: 05/20/1951
• Role: Mission Specialist
• Nationality: American
• First Flight: 10/06/1990
• Last Flight: 09/16/1996

Thomas Dale Akers is a former American astronaut in NASA’s Space Shuttle program.

Jeffrey Hoffman

• Birthday: 11/02/1944
• Role: Mission Specialist
• Nationality: American
• First Flight: 04/12/1985
• Last Flight: 02/22/1996

Jeffrey Alan Hoffman is an American former NASA astronaut and currently a professor of aeronautics and astronautics at MIT. Hoffman made five flights as a space shuttle astronaut, including the first mission to repair the Hubble Space Telescope in 1993, when the orbiting telescope’s flawed optical system was corrected.

Story Musgrave

• Birthday: 08/19/1935
• Role: Mission Specialist
• Nationality: American
• First Flight: 04/04/1983
• Last Flight: 11/19/1996

Franklin Story Musgrave, M.D. is an American physician and a retired NASA astronaut. He is a public speaker[2] and consultant to both Disney’s Imagineering group and Applied Minds in California. In 1996 he became only the second astronaut to fly on six spaceflights, and he is the most formally educated astronaut with six academic degrees.

STS-61

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

STS-61 was the first Hubble Space Telescope servicing mission, and the fifth flight of the Space Shuttle Endeavour. The mission launched on 2 December 1993 from Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The mission restored the spaceborne observatory’s vision, marred by spherical aberration, with the installation of a new main camera and a corrective optics package. This correction occurred more than three and a half years after the Hubble was launched aboard STS-31 in April 1990. The flight also brought instrument upgrades and new solar arrays to the telescope.

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.