Curtis L. Brown Jr. smiles as he is assisted by a suit technician in the Operations and Checkout O&C Building.

STS-85 Commander Curtis L. Brown, Jr. smiles as he is assisted with his ascent/reentry flight suit by a suit technician in the Operations and Checkout (O&C) Building. He is a lieutenant colonel in the Air Force and is on his fourth space flight. Brown has served as the pilot of STS-47, STS-66 and STS-77. A test pilot, he has more than 5,000 hours of flight time in jet aircraft. Brown will have responsibility for the overall success of this space flight and will operate and maintain Discovery throughout the mission. This will include the performance of station-keeping with the Cryogenic Infrared Spectrometers and Telescopes for the Atmosphere-Shuttle Pallet Satellite-2 (CRISTA-SPAS-2) free-flyer payload and many different maneuvers required by different payloads. The primary payload aboard the Space Shuttle orbiter Discovery is the CRISTA-SPAS-2. Other payloads on the 11-day mission include the Manipulator Flight Demonstration (MFD), and Technology Applications and Science-1 (TAS-1) and International Extreme Ultraviolet Hitchhiker-2 (IEH-2) experiments