WIKIARCHIVES.SPACE

The drag chute on the space shuttle Endeavour is deployed as the spacecraft rolls down Runway 15 of the Shuttle Landing Facility (SLF) 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 shuttle at Kennedy Space Center (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.