WIKIARCHIVES.SPACE

STS-83 Mission Commander James D. Halsell, Jr. poses in the cockpit of his T-33 jet trainer aircraft after arriving at the KSC Shuttle Landing Facility along with other members of his crew for Terminal Countdown Demonstration (TCDT) exercises for that space flight. The Microgravity Science Laboratory-1 (MSL-1) Spacelab module is the primary payload on this 16-day mission. The MSL-1 will used to test some of the hardware, facilities and procedures that are planned for use on the International Space Station, while the seven-member crew conducts combustion, protein crystal growth and materials processing experiments.