STS-56 view of freeflying SPARTAN-201 backdropped against heavy cloud cover

STS056-90-034 (8-17 April 1993) --- Backdropped against heavy cloud cover over the Mediterranean Sea, the SPARTAN-201 satellite was captured on 70mm by crewmembers aboard the Space Shuttle Discovery. SPARTAN is a free-flying payload designed to study the solar wind and part of the sun's corona. The project was conceived in the late 1970s to take advantage of the opportunity offered by the Space Shuttle to provide more observation time for the increasingly more sophisticated experiments than the five to ten minutes provided by sounding rocket flights. On the mission's third day, Astronaut Ellen Ochoa, Mission Specialist, used the remote manipulator system (RMS) to lift the satellite from its support structure on Discovery and release it in space. The reusable craft was later recaptured and returned to Earth with the crew. Note the tip of Discovery's vertical stabilizer at frame's edge.