STS-90 Neurolab Program - STS-90 Status Report Flight Day 14 (April 30 CDT) -

Flight Day 14 (April 30 CDT)

Sunset from Space Shuttle
Columbia

Today, per to previous discussions, NASA made the decision not to extend the STS-90 mission. Columbia will land at Kennedy Space Center at 11:09 a.m. (CDT) on Sunday, May 3 as scheduled.

The STS-90 crew members were awakened at 4:09 a.m. (CDT), and began Flight Day 14 activities.

The Sensory Motor and Performance Team collected more data from the Visuo-Motor Coordination Facility (VCF) developed by Canada.
Today's activities were focused on the efforts of Neurolab's Neuronal Plasticity Team to understand how the adult nervous system adapts to the new environment of space, and adult male rats on board were dissected and tissue samples taken for post-flight analysis.
Commander Searfoss and Pilot Altman repaired an apparent blockage in Columbia's waste water dump line today. There is no threat to the mission.

The crew will go to sleep at 7:49 p.m. (CDT) this evening and receive a wake up call from Mission Control Center (MCC) tomorrow morning at about 3:49 a.m.

Status of Japan related experiments

Mission Specialist Hire exchanged data recording magnetic tape of the Vestibular Function Experiment Unit (VFEU) today. The magnetic tapes for recording neural signals are exchanged twice per day.
The neural data has been obtained from the Fish Packages (FPs) of VFEU.

Last Updated : May 1, 1998