STS-57

STS-57 was Endeavour's June-July 1993 Space Shuttle mission that combined the first flight of the privately developed SPACEHAB laboratory with the retrieval of ESA's European Retrievable Carrier. Ronald Grabe commanded the flight, with Brian Duffy as pilot and mission specialists David Low, Nancy Currie-Gregg, Peter Wisoff, and Janice Voss. Endeavour launched from Kennedy Space Center's Launch Complex 39B on June 21, 1993, and landed back at Kennedy on July 1 after just under ten days in orbit. The pressurized SPACEHAB module gave the crew an expanded shirt-sleeve workspace for materials science, life science, and technology experiments, including investigations into wastewater recycling and other microgravity research. The mission also carried smaller secondary payloads and included educational and amateur-radio activities alongside the laboratory work. The EURECA retrieval shaped the most visible operational part of the flight. After Endeavour rendezvoused with the free-flying spacecraft, an antenna-stowage problem required David Low and Peter Wisoff to perform a spacewalk to manually fold the antennas and complete additional EVA tasks. The crew returned EURECA safely to Earth, closing out a mission that linked Shuttle servicing work, commercial laboratory operations, and international payload recovery.