Michael Braukus
Headquarters, Washington, DC                     May 31, 1996
(Phone: 202/358-1979)

Eileen Hawley
Johnson Space Center, Houston, TX
(Phone: 713/483-5111)


RELEASE:  96-109

COMMANDER, PILOT, FLIGHT ENGINEER ROUND OUT STS-83 CREW

    Jim Halsell (Lt. Colonel, USAF) will command the long-
duration Microgravity Science Laboratory mission set for 
launch on board Columbia in the spring of 1997.  Halsell will 
be joined on the flight deck by pilot Susan Still 
(Lieutenant, USN) the first of the 1995 class of astronauts 
to be assigned to a Space Shuttle flight, and Mission 
Specialist Mike Gernhardt, Ph.D.

    They join Payload Commander Janice Voss and Mission 
Specialist Don Thomas previously named to the flight, along 
with Payload Specialists Roger K. Crouch and Gregory T. 
Linteris.

    Halsell, 39,  has flown twice on the Space Shuttle, as 
pilot on Columbia during the STS-65 mission in July 1994 and 
on Atlantis for STS-74, the second Shuttle-Mir docking 
mission. Still, 34, will be making her first space flight on 
STS-83 following the successful completion of more than one 
year of training to prepare her for assignment to Shuttle 
flights.

    Gernhardt, 40, will be making his second journey into 
space having flown previously on Endeavour during STS-69, the 
second flight of the Wake Shield Facility.

    The 16-day Spacelab mission will feature more than 25 
microgravity science investigations in fluid physics, 
combustion science and materials science.

    For complete biographical information on the STS-83 crew 
and other astronauts, see the NASA Internet astronaut 
biography home page at URL: http://www.jsc.nasa.gov/Bios/

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