STS-62

STS-62 was Columbia's March 1994 microgravity and technology mission, carrying the U.S. Microgravity Payload-2 and the Office of Aeronautics and Space Technology-2 payloads. NASA lists John Casper as commander, Andrew Allen as pilot, and Pierre Thuot, Charles Gemar, and Marsha Ivins as mission specialists. Columbia launched from Kennedy Space Center's Launch Complex 39B on March 4, 1994, and landed on Runway 33 at the Shuttle Landing Facility on March 18 after 13 days, 23 hours, 16 minutes, and 41 seconds in orbit. The mission's USMP-2 work focused on materials processing, crystal growth, and fluid physics experiments operated in Columbia's payload bay, while OAST-2 tested space-technology hardware and materials in the orbital environment. NASA notes that Columbia's orbit was later lowered to support OAST-2 operations, and the crew also worked a broad set of middeck experiments in protein crystal growth, physiology, bioprocessing, auroral photography, radiation monitoring, and structural dynamics. STS-62 was a long-duration Shuttle science flight rather than a deployment or station mission. Its value for the catalog is in connecting several Shuttle veterans to a two-week research mission that NASA used to study both microgravity science and technologies relevant to later spacecraft and space-station operations.