KSC-98pc1306

Behind the dark visors of their helmets are STS-95 Mission Commander Curtis L. Brown (left) and Pilot Steven W. Lindsey (right), practicing emergency egress from the Space Shuttle Discovery. Brown and Lindsey, along with the rest of the STS-95 crew, are at KSC to participate in the Terminal Countdown Demonstration Test (TCDT) which includes mission familiarization activities, emergency egress training, and a simulated main engine cutoff. The other crew members are Mission Specialist Scott E. Parazynski, Mission Specialist Pedro Duque of Spain, representing the European Space Agency (ESA), Mission Specialist Stephen K. Robinson, Payload Specialists John H. Glenn Jr., senator from Ohio, and Chiaki Mukai (M.D., Ph.D.), representing the National Space Development Agency of Japan (NASDA). The STS-95 mission, targeted 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. Following the TCDT, the crew will be returning to Houston for final flight preparations