STS-88

[abortflight]

This mission was worthy of a hollywood movie the way I did it. First thing that happened was I spent about 3 hours getting the Unity to the right position to dock, then I needed to move the arm into rough position and translate towards the ISS to get the arm into a good grapple position. More things went wrong during EVA. The arm with EV-1 got stuck and I had to use it for the rest of the mission in single mode. EV-1 must have been bored out of his space helmet . Then, when trying to get the final EVA back to the airlock, he couldn't squeeze between the side of the shuttle and the PMA, so he had to go up over the station, then back down into the airlock. At landing, I found out to my horror that I was at an exact 90 degree angle to the runway. Using my experience with Flight Simulator X, I managed to line up with the runway at the very last second. During final approach, I found out I have the speedbrakes out and was loosing airspeed at an dangorous rate. Then, at touchdown, It turned out I was at that magic airspeed where I was too slow to safely stay in the air, but too fast to safely stop. By a sheer miracle, I finished the mission on my first try. We really need a nervous sweat emoticon.

[uri_ba]

congrats..
IMHO, STS-88 is by far the most difficult mission in SSM.

post the badge proudly in the correct thread!

[abortflight]

Yep, finishing STS-88 really boosted my confidence in this game. I've allready finished STS-122, and am working on STS-121 and STS-116

[KLJ]

Finished STS-88 last night. Started it a week ago but found the RMS operations and the docking pretty grueling. Also had a few issues getting EVA-1 and EVA-2 in the correct positions to trigger the next event. I got so frustrated I left this mission alone for a few days while I completed STS-27. I returned to STS-88 last night and I can't tell you how great I felt when I managed to complete it. It's a very diffcult mission but I'm glad I did it because it's really improved my skill and confidence in using both the RMS and in carrying out EVA's. 

[STS78MEMBER]

I have to agree, I think STS 88 is probably the hardest mission here.  I had a terrible time and it took forever for me to finish. It was one hell of a challenge!

[KLJ]

The challenge was certainly worth it though when the wheels hit the runway after a sucessful mission. 

[shanes80]

STS-88 was the most sastisfying mission to date for me to complete 

[Admin]

And here comes STS-98 to push aside STS-88 as the most demanding mission <g>

/Admin

[uri_ba]

And here comes STS-98 to push STS-88 as the most demanding mission <g>

/Admin

Yep..
king is dead, long live the king!

[STS78MEMBER]

Oh great!  I just started STS 98 from a long hiatus. Is STS 98 that more challenging than STS 88?  ARRRGGHHH!!!!