STS-42

STS-42 was a Space Shuttle Discovery mission with the Spacelab module. Liftoff was originally scheduled for 8:45 EST (13:45 UTC) 22 January 1992, but the launch was delayed due to weather constraints. Discovery successfully lifted off an hour later at 9:52 EST (14:52 UTC). The main goal of the mission was to study the effects of microgravity on a variety of organisms. The shuttle landed at 8:07 PST (16:07 UTC) on 30 January 1992 on Runway 22, Edwards Air Force Base, California. STS-42 was the first of two flights in 1992 of Discovery, the second of which occurred during STS-53, which launched on 2 December 1992. The mission was also the last mission of the Space Shuttle Discovery to have a seven-member crew until STS-82, which was launched on 11 February 1997.

Crew

Crew seating arrangements

Crew notes

The crew of STS-42 included West Germany's first astronaut, Ulf Merbold, who was making his second spaceflight, and Canada's first female astronaut, Roberta Bondar. In order to allow around-the-clock monitoring of experiments, the astronauts were divided into a red team and a blue team. Manley L. Carter, was originally assigned to fly as Mission Specialist 3 for this mission, but died 7 months prior the launch in a plane crash. David Hilmers was then chosen to replace him.