From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

STS 41-G
Mission insignia
Mission statistics
Mission name	STS 41-G
Space shuttle	Challenger
Launch pad	39-A
Launch date	5 October, 1984, 11:03:00 UTC
Landing	13 October, 1984, 16:26:33 UTC KSC
Mission duration	8d/05:23:33
Number of orbits	133
Orbital altitude	218 nautical miles (404 km)
Orbital inclination	57.0°
Distance traveled	3,289,444 miles (5,293,847 km)
Crew photo
Bottom (L to R) Jon A. McBride, Pilot, Sally K. Ride, Kathryn D. Sullivan and David C. Leestma, Mission Specialists. Top (L-R) Paul D. Scully-Power, Payload Specialist; Robert L. Crippen, Commander, and Marc Garneau, Canadian Payload Specialist. The replica of a gold astronaut pin near McBride signifies unity.
Related missions
Previous mission Next mission STS-41-D STS-51-A

STS 41-G marked the 13th flight of a space shuttle and the sixth flight of Challenger. It conducted the second landing at Kennedy Space Center. It was the first shuttle mission to carry a crew of seven, including the first crew with two women (Sally Ride and Kathryn Sullivan), the first American EVA involving a woman (Sullivan), and the first Canadian astronaut (Marc Garneau).

STS-41-G was the second shuttle mission to have the IMAX camera on board to document the flight. Film from the mission (including Sullivan and Leestma's EVA) appeared in the IMAX movie The Dream is Alive.

Crew

Backup crew

Mission parameters

• Mass:
  • Orbiter Liftoff: 242,780 pounds (110,120 kg)
  • Orbiter Landing: 202,266 pounds (91,746 kg)
  • Payload: 18,901 pounds (8,573 kg)
• Perigee: 218 miles (351 km)
• Apogee: 243 miles (391 km)
• Inclination: 57°
• Period: 92.0 min

Space walk

• Leestma and Sullivan - EVA 1
• EVA 1 Start: 11 October, 1984
• EVA 1 End: October 11, 1984
• Duration: 3 hours, 29 minutes

Mission highlights

ERBS during deployment.

SIR-B antenna deployment.

Sullivan during the EVA.

On 5 October, 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 and second in six months; 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, as well as the first Canadian in space.

Astronaut Sullivan became the first American woman to walk in space when she and David C. Leestma performed a 3 hour EVA on 11 October 1984 demonstrating the Orbital Refueling System (ORS) and proving the feasibility of refueling satellites in orbit.

Nine hours after liftoff, the 5,087 pounds (2,307 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 (560 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 K_u 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 US Naval Research Lab, 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.^[1]

STS 41-G was an 8 day, 5 hour, 23 minute, 33 second mission which traveled 3,289,444 miles (5,293,847 km) and completed 132 orbits. It landed at the Shuttle Landing Facility at KSC -- the second Shuttle landing there -- on 13 October 1984, at 12:26 p.m. EDT.

Mission insignia

The thirteen complete stars in the blue field of the U.S. flag of the mission insignia symbolize the flight's numerical designation in the Space Transportation System's mission sequence. Gender symbols are placed next to each astronaut's name, and a Canadian flag icon is placed next to Garneau's name.

Wake-up calls

A tradition for NASA human spaceflights since the days of Gemini, mission crews are played a special musical track at the start of each day in space. Each track is specially chosen, often by their families, and usually has a special meaning to an individual member of the crew, or is applicable to their daily activities. ^[2]

See also

• Space science
• Space shuttle
• List of space shuttle missions
• List of human spaceflights chronologically

References

External links

• NASA mission summary
• STS-41G Video Highlights
• The Dream is Alive IMAX film with footage from STS-41-G
• STS 41-G NST Program Mission Report