KSC-98pc1244

STS-95 Payload Specialist Chiaki Mukai, representing the National Space Development Agency of Japan (NASDA), gives a thumbs up after her arrival aboard a T-38 jet aircraft at the Shuttle Landing Facility at KSC. Mukai and the rest of the crew are at KSC to participate in a Terminal Countdown Demonstration Test (TCDT). The TCDT includes mission familiarization activities, training in emergency exit from the orbiter and launch pad, and a simulated main engine cut-off exercise. The other members on the mission are Mission Commander Curtis L. Brown, Pilot Steven W. Lindsey; Mission Specialists Scott E. Parazynski, Stephen K. Robinson, and Pedro Duque of Spain, representing the European Space Agency (ESA); and Payload Specialist John H. Glenn Jr., senator from Ohio. The STS-95 mission, scheduled for liftoff on Oct. 29, includes research payloads such as the Spartan solar-observing deployable spacecraft, the Hubble Space Telescope Orbital Systems Test Platform, the International Extreme Ultraviolet Hitchhiker, as well as the SPACEHAB single module with experiments on space flight and the aging process