WIKIARCHIVES.SPACE

The space shuttle Endeavour is just about to touch down on Runway 15 of the Shuttle Landing Facility (SLF), at Kennedy Space Center (KSC), to successfully complete an almost-nine-day mission in Earth orbit. Main gear touchdown was at 5:35:09 p.m. (EST) Jan. 31, 1998. Complete wheel stop occurred at 5:36:19 p.m., making a total mission elapsed time of eight days, 19 hours, 48 minutes and four seconds. The 89th space shuttle mission marked the 42nd (and 13th consecutive) landing of a space shuttle at KSC. Onboard were astronauts Terrence W. Wilcutt, Joe F. Edwards Jr., Bonnie J. Dunbar, David A. Wolf, James F. Reilly and Michael P. Anderson and the Russian Space Agency's (RSA) cosmonaut Salizhan S. Sharipov. Andrew S. W. Thomas had earlier gone into space aboard the Endeavour to replace Wolf aboard Russia's Mir Space Station. The ninth and final shuttle/Mir docking mission in the spring of this year will retrieve Thomas from the Mir complex.