sts-88

Unity was carried into orbit as the primary cargo of the Space Shuttle Endeavour on STS-88, the first Space Shuttle mission dedicated to assembly of the station. On December 6, 1998, the STS-88 crew mated the aft berthing port of Unity with the forward hatch of the already orbiting Zarya module. (Zarya was a mixed Russian-US funded and Russian-built component launched earlier aboard a Russian Proton rocket from Baikonur, Kazakhstan.) This was the first connection made between two station modules.

MightySat is a United States Air Force Phillips Laboratory multi-mission, small satellite program dedicated to providing frequent, inexpensive, on-orbit demonstrations of space system technologies. The MightySat payload will launched from the Shuttle via the Hitchhiker Ejection System, which is managed out of the Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, MD.

STS-88 was the first Space Shuttle mission to the International Space Station (ISS). It was flown by Space Shuttle Endeavour, and took the first American module, the Unity node, to the station.
The seven-day mission was highlighted by the mating of the U.S.-built Unity node to the Functional Cargo Block (Zarya module) already in orbit, and three spacewalks to connect power and data transmission cables between the Node and the FGB. Zarya, built by Boeing and the Russian Space Agency, was launched on a Russian Proton rocket from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan in November 1998.

STS-88 was the first Space Shuttle mission to the International Space Station (ISS). It was flown by Space Shuttle Endeavour, and took the first American module, the Unity node, to the station.
The seven-day mission was highlighted by the mating of the U.S.-built Unity node to the Functional Cargo Block (Zarya module) already in orbit, and three spacewalks to connect power and data transmission cables between the Node and the FGB. Zarya, built by Boeing and the Russian Space Agency, was launched on a Russian Proton rocket from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan in November 1998.
This patch was issued prior to the addition of Krikalev to the crew.

Getaway Special was a NASA program that offered interested individuals, or groups, opportunities to fly small experiments aboard the Space Shuttle. The program, which was officially known as the Small, Self-Contained Payloads program, was canceled following the Space Shuttle Columbia disaster on February 1, 2003.

In January 1997, Jim "Pluto" Newman wrote a letter to me and posed the idea of yet another Dog Crew,
however because some of the management at NASA thought that the concept detracted from the seriousness
and importance of space flight, he thought perhaps we should develop a "stealt" patch......Stealth Dog Crew
III.

Their mission will be STS-88, a high profile flight, it will be the first assembly mission for the International
Space Station. The commander is Robert "Mighty Dog" Cabana, a member of the original STS-53 Dog
Crew litter. Joining "Pluto" and "Mighty Dog" will be shuttle pilot Rick "Devil Dog" Sturckow; mission
specialist Jerry "Hooch" Ross; mission specialist Nancy "Laika" Currie; and the newest arrival, cosmonaut
Sergei "Spotnik" Krikalev.