STS-41-G
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| Mission name: | STS 41-G | ||||
| Shuttle: | Challenger | ||||
| Launch pad: | 39-A | ||||
| Launch: | October 5, 1984, 7:03:00 a.m. EDT | ||||
| Landing: | October 13, 1984, 12:26:33 p.m. EDT, KSC | ||||
| Duration: | 8 days, five hours, 23 minutes, 33 seconds | ||||
| Number of Orbits: | 133 | ||||
| Orbit altitude: | 218 nautical miles (404 km) | ||||
| Orbit inclination: | 57.0 degrees | ||||
| Distance traveled: | 3,289,444 miles (5 293 847 km) | ||||
| Crew photo | |||||
 (front, l to r) Astronauts Jon A. McBride, pilot; and Sally K. Ride, Kathryn D. Sullivan and David C. Leestma, all mission specialists. Top row from left to right are Paul D. Scully-Power, payload specialist; Robert L. Crippen, crew commander; and Marc Garneau, Canadian payload specialist. The replica of a gold astronaut pin near McBride signifies unity. |
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STS 41-G marked the 13th flight of a Space Shuttle and the sixth flight of the Challenger. It conducted the second landing at Kennedy Space Center.
Contents |
[edit] Crew
(total flights to date in parentheses)
- Robert L. Crippen (4), Commander
- Jon A. McBride (1), Pilot
- Kathryn D. Sullivan (1), Mission Specialist 1
- Sally K. Ride (2), Mission Specialist 2
- David C. Leestma (1), Mission Specialist 3
- Marc Garneau (1), Payload Specialist 1 - Canada
- Paul D. Scully-Power (1), Payload Specialist 2
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- Robert Thirsk, Backup Payload Specialist (not flown)
[edit] Mission parameters
- Mass:
- Orbiter Liftoff: 110,127 kg
- Orbiter Landing: 91,744 kg
- Payload: 10,643 kg
- Perigee: 350 km
- Apogee: 390 km
- Inclination: 51.7°
- Period: 92.0 min
[edit] Space walk
- Leestma and Sullivan - EVA 1
- EVA 1 Start: October 11, 1984
- EVA 1 End: October 11, 1984
- Duration: 3 hours, 29 minutes
[edit] Mission highlights
On October 5, 1984, Challenger returned to flight with its launch at 7:03 a.m. EDT, marking the start of the STS 41-G mission. It was Challenger's sixth mission and the 13th liftoff in the Space Shuttle program.
On board were seven crew members -- the largest flight crew ever to fly on a single spacecraft at that time. They included commander Robert L. Crippen, making his fourth Shuttle flight; pilot Jon A. McBride; three mission specialists -- David C. Leestma, Sally K. Ride and Kathryn D. Sullivan -- (the first time two female astronauts had flown together); and two payload specialists, Paul Scully-Power and Marc Garneau, the first Canadian citizen to serve as a Shuttle crew member.
Astronaut Sullivan became the second woman to walk in space when she and David C. Leestma performed a 3 hour EVA on Oct. ll demonstrating the Orbital Refueling System (ORS) and proving the feasibility of refueling satellites in orbit.
Nine hours after liftoff, the 5,087 lb (2307 kg), Earth Radiation Budget Satellite (ERBS) was deployed from the payload bay by the RMS arm, and its on-board thrusters boosted it into an orbit 350 miles (563 km) above the Earth. ERBS was the first of three planned satellites designed to measure the amount of energy received from the sun and reradiated into space. It also studied the seasonal movement of energy from the tropics to the polar regions.
Another major mission activity, operation of the Shuttle Imaging Radar-B (SIR-B) was conducted. SIR-B was part of the OSTA-3 experiment package in the payload bay, which also included the Large Format Camera (LFC) to photograph Earth, another camera called MAPS which measured air pollution, and a feature identification and location experiment called FILE which consisted of two TV cameras and two 70 mm still cameras.
The SIR-B effort was an improved version of a similar device flown on the OSTA-l package during STS-2. It had an eight-panel antenna array measuring 35 by 7 feet (11 by 2 m). It operated throughout the flight but problems were encountered with Challenger’s Ku band antenna and therefore much of the data had to be recorded on board the orbiter rather than transmitted to Earth in real-time as originally planned.
Payload Specialist Scully-Powers, an employee of the [[U.S. Naval Research Laboratory]], performed a series of oceanography observations during the mission. Garneau conducted experiments sponsored by the Canadian government, called CANEX, which were related to medical, atmospheric, climatic, materials and robotic sciences. A number of GAS canisters covering a wide variety of materials testing and physics were also flown.
The Soviet Terra-3 laser testing centre was used to track Challenger with a low power laser on 10 October 1984. This caused malfunction of on-board equipment and temporary blinding of the crew, leading to a US diplomatic protest.
STS 41-G was an 8 day, 5 hour, 23 minute, 33 second mission which traveled 4.3 million miles (6,900,000 km) and completed 132 orbits. It landed at the Shuttle Landing Facility at KSC -- the second Shuttle landing there -- on October 13, at 12:26 p.m. EDT.
[edit] See also
- Space science
- Space shuttle
- List of space shuttle missions
- List of human spaceflights chronologically
