STS-90

STS-90 was the Neurolab mission, a 1998 Space Shuttle Columbia flight dedicated to neuroscience and human physiology research. NASA describes it as the final scheduled flight of the European-built Spacelab module and lists 26 investigations focused on how the brain, nervous system, and related body systems respond to microgravity. The seven-person crew served both as experiment operators and, for many studies, research subjects. Columbia launched from Kennedy Space Center's Launch Complex 39B on April 17, 1998, with Richard Searfoss commanding and Scott Altman serving as pilot. Richard Linnehan, Dafydd Williams, and Kathryn Hire flew as mission specialists, while Jay Buckey and James Pawelczyk flew as payload specialists with space-medicine and physiology research backgrounds. Research proceeded as planned except for reprioritized mammalian-development work after high neonatal-rat mortality. The crew also bypassed a suspect carbon-dioxide-removal valve that had threatened to shorten the flight. Columbia landed on Runway 33 at Kennedy's Shuttle Landing Facility on May 3 after 15 days, 21 hours, 50 minutes, and 58 seconds in orbit.