WIKIARCHIVES.SPACE

Half of the crew members share support of the Shuttle Plume Impingement Flight Experiment (SPIFEX) in this 35mm frame. Astronauts Susan J. Helms and Mark C. Lee (foreground) share a pertinent bit of data while astronaut L. Blaine Hammond in the background controls Reaction Control System (RCS) thrusters on the space shuttle Discovery. Helms' role was to control the Remote Manipulator System (RMS) arm, to which 30-feet of SPIFEX hardware were appended in order to measure the RCS plume induced loads in the far field region. Lee records data on a lap top Payload General Support Computer (PGSC). SPIFEX was developed to help understand the thruster effects on approaching spacecraft.