FREESTAR Teams Meet All Mission Objectives For STS-107

"This has been one of the smoothest missions I've ever had a payload on and the closest we've ever stuck to the pre-mission timeline." Those of are the comments of Tom Dixon, assistant office manager of the Small Shuttle Payload Programs, and mission manager for FREESTAR the STS-107 Hitchhiker payload.

"From every level of this mission from Kennedy Space Center, Johnson Space Center, the crew and the team members at Goddard, every aspect of this mission has been absolutely great," add Dixon.

This mission, according to Dixon, was one of the more complex because of the number of experiments and length of stay for the shuttle.

The STS-107 mission began during the early morning hours of Jan. 16 with a picture perfect launch of Space Shuttle Columbia from pad 39A at the Kennedy Space Center. It marked the first time an Israeli astronaut was aboard for the trip to outer space. Also along went the Hitchhiker payload named FREESTAR, which included six separate experiments to include the Mediterranean Israeli Dust Experiment (MEIDEX).

	Tom Dixon (standing), FREESTAR mission manager confers with MEIDEX team, (l to r) Dr. Yoav Yair, Meir Moalem and Prof. Joachim Joseph. Photo by Chris Gunn/293

The Israeli team responsible for MEIDEX began moving aboard Goddard to establish a temporary workspace several days before launch. Their experiment housed in the cargo bay of Columbia would afford them a unique opportunity for data collection.

The primary goal of the team was to study the spread of desert aerosols over North Africa, the Mediterranean Sea and adjacent Atlantic Ocean. The plan was to collect the data using an instrument onboard the shuttle, another instrument on the ground and simultaneously collect data using an aircraft flying through a dust storm.
"We are excited that we were able to achieve all mission objectives and more," said Professor Joachim Joseph, Department of Geophysics and Planetary Sciences, Tel Aviv University and principal investigator for MEIDEX. "We were able to record other phenomenon known as Sprites and Elve and many scientists are already asking us for daily bulletins about our studies," said Joseph.

The team was also able to show that huge ground fires altars the ability of the atmosphere to create and maintain cloudy formation. According to Joseph this can have a major affect on weather condition and should be taken into consideration when planning large scale intentional burning, which occurs several times a year in Brazil according to Joseph.

The Israeli team hopes to work with NASA again in the future either aboard another shuttle flight or the International Space Station. "What we did on this mission is pretty close to what we planned," said Dixon. "The Hitchhiker System performed flawlessly and the six experiments were able to meet or exceed all of their scientific and technological validation objectives," said Dixon.

The other experiments that make up the FREESTAR payload include Solar Constant Experiment (SOLCON-3), Shuttle Ozone Limb Sounding Experiment (SOLSE-2), Critical Viscosity of Xenon (CVX-2), Low Power Transceiver (LPT), and the Space Experimental Module (SEM-14).

"It has been a thrill, honor and privilege to work with these incredibly brilliant people," said Dixon about the entire FREESTAR team to including the flight operations crew at Goddard. "Combine that with a shuttle crew that's absolutely top notch from beginning to end and it has been a mission that has been absolutely great," concluded Dixon.

For more information on the FREESTAR project, visit: http://sspp.gsfc.nasa.gov/hh/freestar/overview.html