Mar 22 1996
From The Space Library
Space News for this day. (1MB PDF)
Shuttle Atlantis launched from KSC in Cape Canaveral, Florida, setting out for the Mir space station. Space Shuttle Mission STS-76 was the third Space Shuttle Mir docking mission. The Shuttle carried six astronauts, including Shannon W. Lucid, destined for a five-month stay on the Russian space outpost. Complications arose when flight controllers at Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas, detected a potential problem during the launch. A minor leak had occurred in one of the Shuttle's three hydraulic systems used to move the wing flaps. After analyzing the extent of the problem, however, NASA officials determined that the mission could go on as planned. NASA planned the mission to last nine days, connecting with Mir on the third day.
Former NASA astronaut Robert F. Overmyer died while test piloting the experimental Cirrus VK-30 aircraft near Duluth, Minnesota. Overmyer was performing a series of stalls at an altitude of more than 8,000 feet (2,400 meters) when the aircraft "departed from controlled flight." Overmyer had served in the U.S. Marine Corps from 1959 to 1986, becoming a NASA astronaut in 1969, and piloting Shuttle Mission STS-5 in 1982. After leaving NASA and the Marine Corps in 1986, Overmyer worked for McDonnell Douglas Aerospace.
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