EC94-42853-6
Space Shuttle Atlantis atop NASA’s 747 Shuttle Carrier Aircraft (SCA) during takeoff for a return ferry flight to the Kennedy Space Center from Edwards, CA. The STS-66 mission was dedicated to the third flight of the Atmospheric Laboratory for Applications and Science-3 (ATLAS-3), part of NASA’s Mission to Planet Earth program. The astronauts also deployed and retrieved a free-flying satellite designed to study the middle and lower thermospheres and perform a series of experiments covering life sciences research and microgravity processing.
Shuttle Crew: Commander Donald R. McMonagle, Pilot Curtis L. Brown Jr., Payload Commander Ellen Ochoa, Mission Specialists Scott E. Parazynski, Joseph R. Tanner, and Jean-Francois Clervoy.1994
NASA / Photo