STS-95 was more than a Space Shuttle mission — it was a national event. On October 29, 1998, Senator John Glenn, at 77 years old, returned to space aboard Discovery, 36 years after he became the first American to orbit Earth in his Mercury Friendship 7 capsule on February 20, 1962. Glenn became the oldest person ever to fly in space, a record he would hold until 2021.

The mission had a serious scientific purpose: NASA partnered with the National Institute on Aging to study the effects of spaceflight on the elderly, since many symptoms of spaceflight — bone density loss, muscle atrophy, sleep disturbance, and immune system changes — closely mirror the effects of aging. Glenn served as a payload specialist, undergoing extensive medical monitoring throughout the mission. The data collected helped researchers understand the parallels between aging and microgravity adaptation.

Beyond the aging studies, STS-95 carried a packed science manifest with 83 experiments spanning multiple disciplines. The crew deployed and retrieved the SPARTAN-201 solar observatory to study the solar corona, operated the International Extreme Ultraviolet Hitchhiker (IEH-3) to observe celestial targets, and conducted materials science investigations using the Space Experiment Module. Pedro Duque of ESA and Chiaki Mukai of JAXA brought international collaboration to the mission.

Discovery launched from Kennedy Space Center’s LC-39B before an enormous crowd estimated at 250,000 people and a worldwide television audience. The media frenzy was extraordinary — this was the most-watched Shuttle launch since the Return to Flight after Challenger. After 134 orbits and nearly nine days in space, Discovery landed at KSC Runway 33 on November 7, 1998, capping one of the most publicly celebrated missions of the Shuttle era.