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ArchivesText SizeSTS-48 Mission: UARS
Space Shuttle: Discovery
Launch Pad: 39A 
Launch Weight: 240,062 pounds
Launched: September 12, 1991, 7:11:04 p.m. EDT
Landing Site: Edwards Air Force Base, Calif.
Landing: September 18, 1991, 12:38:42 a.m. PDT
Landing Weight: 192,780 pounds
Runway: 22 
Rollout Distance: 9,513 feet
Rollout Time: 50 seconds
Revolution: 81
Mission Duration: 5 days, 8 hours, 27 minutes, 38 seconds
Returned to KSC: September 26, 1991
Orbit Altitude: 313 nautical miles
Orbit Inclination: 57 degrees
Miles Traveled: 2.2 million 

Crew Members

                     

Image above: STS-48 Crew photo with Commander John O. Creighton, Pilot Kenneth 
S. Reightler, Jr., Mission Specialists Mark N. Brown, Charles D. Gemar and James 
F. Buchli. Image Credit: NASA 

Mission Highlights

 The primary payload, the Upper Atmosphere Research Satellite (UARS), was 
deployed on the third day of the mission. During its planned 18-month mission, 
the 14,500-pound observatory will make the most extensive study ever conducted 
of the Earth's troposphere, the upper level of the planet's envelope of life 
sustaining gases which also include the protective ozone layer. UARS has ten 
sensing and measuring devices: Cryogenic Limb Array Etalon Spectrometer (CLAES); 
Improved Stratospheric and Mesospheric Sounder (ISAMS); Microwave Limb Sounder 
(MLS); Halogen Occultation Experiment (HALOE); High Resolution Doppler Imager 
(HRDI); Wind Imaging Interferometer (WlNDII); Solar Ultraviolet Spectral 
Irradiance Monitor (SUSIM); Solar/Stellar Irradiance Comparison Experiment 
(SOLSTICE); Particle Environment Monitor (PEM) and Active Cavity Radiometer 
Irradiance Monitor (ACRIM II).

The secondary payloads were: Ascent Particle Monitor (APM); Middeck 0-Gravity 
Dynamics Experiment (MODE); Shuttle Activation Monitor (SAM); Cosmic Ray Effects 
and Activation Monitor (CREAM); Physiological and Anatomical Rodent Experiment 
(PARE); Protein Crystal Growth II-2 (PCG II-2); Investigations into Polymer 
Membrane Processing (IPMP); and the Air Force Maui Optical Site (AMOS) 
experiment.

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