Pilot Kent V. Rominger is assisted with his ascent reentry flight suit in the Operations and Checkout O&C Building.

STS-85 Pilot Kent V. Rominger is assisted with his ascent/reentry flight suit in the Operations and Checkout (O&C) Building. He is a commander in the Navy and is on his third Shuttle mission. Rominger previously flew in this capacity on STS-73 and STS-80. He holds a master’s degree in aeronautical engineering and has more than 4,500 hours of flight time and 685 carrier landings. Rominger will assist Commander Curtis L. Brown, Jr. with all phases of the space flight and during the test of International Space Station rendezvous procedures during the Cryogenic Infrared Spectrometers and Telescopes for the Atmosphere-Shuttle Pallet Satellite-2 (CRISTA-SPAS-2) free-flyer retrieval. He will also be busy with the many and varied tasks associated with monitoring and maintaining the orbiter. In addition, Rominger will operate the Solid Surface Combustion Middeck Experiment. 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