This was a research mission dedicated to science.


"This flight has been absolutely fantastic, the science has been spectacular and we just can't wait to bring it home so the scientists can really take a close look at what we've done," Columbia payload commander Michael Anderson said during the crew's in-flight news conference.




When Columbia was launched from Kennedy Space Center, it carried a SPACEHAB Research Double Module (RDM) in its payload bay. The RDM is a pressurized environment that is accessible to the crew (while in orbit) via a tunnel from the shuttle's middeck. Together, the middeck and the RDM contained the majority of the mission's experiments.

"We're doing a huge amount of science," mission specialist Dr. Laurel Clark reported during the flight.

Mission commander Rick Husband had a master's degree in mechanical engineering. "This mission will help us to understand and protect our home planet--in particular with the studies that look at the Earth's atmosphere and the ozone layer," he said during the crew's in-flight news conference.

Much of the astronauts' work was in preparation for future flights aboard the International Space Station (which is being built by the U.S., Europe, Canada and Japan), according to Anderson. "The scientists will have years to conduct the experiments we're trying to do here in a relatively short period of time."







That was just one experiment. There were scores of others.


"Some of that will be their legacy," said Ron Dittemore, the space shuttle program manager.