Specialist Leonid Kadenyuk of the National Space Agency of Ukraine gives a thumbs up in his launch in the Operations and Checkout Building.

STS-87 Payload Specialist Leonid Kadenyuk of the National Space Agency of Ukraine gives a ‘thumbs up’ in his launch and entry suit in the Operations and Checkout Building. He and the five other crew members of STS-87 will depart shortly for Launch Pad 39B, where the Space Shuttle Columbia awaits liftoff on a 16-day mission to perform microgravity and solar research. Kadenyuk will be flying his first mission on STS-87. During the mission, Kadenyuk will pollinate Brassica rapa plants as part of the Collaborative Ukrainian Experiment, or CUE, aboard Columbia. The CUE experiment is a collection of 10 plant space biology experiments that will fly in Columbia’s middeck and features an educational component that involves evaluating the effects of microgravity on Brassica rapa seedlings