Endeavour's May 1996 flight was a busy technology-demonstration mission, combining commercial research in a Spacehab module with a series of experiments in deploying structures in orbit. The crew of six ran materials and biotechnology work in the pressurised module while tending payloads in the bay.
The mission's most memorable moment came with an inflatable antenna experiment: a small satellite unfurled a huge, gossamer-thin reflector, testing whether large space structures might be built by inflation rather than heavy mechanisms. The crew also flew a free-flying platform through a series of rendezvous exercises. At ten days, the flight showcased the inventive, experimental side of the programme, trying out ideas for building big, lightweight structures cheaply in space.
Endeavour's May 1996 flight was largely about structures that unfold. Its centrepiece was an inflatable antenna: a fourteen-metre dish carried in a canister the size of a suitcase, released on a free-flying platform and then inflated in orbit to test whether large apertures could be built from fabric rather than rigid metal.
The deployment was unruly — the structure whipped and oscillated far more than the models had predicted before settling into shape — but it worked, and the reflector's surface was accurate enough to be useful. The technology lineage runs directly to modern inflatable habitats and the deployable antennas now common on small satellites.
The mission also flew a commercial SPACEHAB module full of biotechnology and materials experiments, and deployed a small satellite that Endeavour then chased through a series of rendezvous manoeuvres, practising approaches from different directions in preparation for the station assembly flights already being planned.
