A photo of the flight crew taken earlier this month. The crew is standing in front of the Shuttle Discovery (with its new lightweight external tank). From left to right, they are Pilot Dominic Gorie; Mission Specialists Franklin Chang-Diaz, Ph.D.; Wendy B. Lawrence and Janet Kavandi, Ph.D.; Mission Commander Charles Precourt; and Mission Specialist Valery Ryumin, with the Russian Space Agency.
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Image courtesy of NASA
A New ET!
News story originally written on May 19, 1998
The shuttle Discovery is scheduled to launch on June 2. This shuttle will have a new ET. Not a new extra-terrestrial, but a new external tank!
If you look at the picture of the Discovery crew, you will see the shuttle in the background. Do you know which part is the ET (external tank)? It is the orange part! If you've seen other pictures of the shuttle, you're probably wondering why this new external tank doesn't look any different than the old ones...you see, the new external tank doesn't look any different. It just weighs less!
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