Flight Crew
ZALETIN, Sergei Viktorovich, 40, Russian Air Force, commander, 2nd mission Previous mission: Soyuz TM30 (2000)
De WINNE, Frank, 41, Belgian Air Force, flight engineer 1 LONCHAKOV, Yuri Valentinovich, 37, Russian Air Force, flight engineer 2, 2nd mission
Previous mission: STS-100 (2001)
Flight Log
The crew for TMA1 seemed to be finalised in July 2002, with Mir veteran Sergei Zaletin and ESA Belgian astronaut Frank De Winne being joined by N Sync pop singer Lance Bass as the third space flight participant. This was the latest in a long line of suggested “millionaire” fare-paying cosmonauts for the flight. However, by 20 August, no payment from sponsors was forthcoming and Bass was removed from the crew.
To fill the seat and return the crew to a full complement of three, back-up commander Yuri Lonchakov was reassigned at short notice to fly the mission, the inaugural flight of the new Soyuz TMA1 spacecraft. TMA (Transport, Modification, Anthropometric) featured changes to allow taller and smaller crew members to fly in it, which meant that many of the American astronauts that had previously been unsuitable for Soyuz or ISS missions could now be considered for TMA training, a timely factor that became very fortunate in the next few months. Internal systems and provisions for comfort would allow crew members between 1.5 and 1.9m tall, instead of the previous 1.64 and 1.82 m in the TM craft.
Soyuz TMA1 was the first new variant of Soyuz to fly without a prior unmanned flight, and it docked with ISS on 1 November. During the week aboard the station, the two Russian cosmonauts briefed the Russian ISS-5 crew members on the features of
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The first TMA crew pose for a group photo with the ISS-5 resident crew. In foreground is ISS-5 commander Valeri Korzun, in middle row is TMA1 commander Sergei Zalyotin (left) and Belgian ESA astronaut Frank De Winne. In the back row l to r are ISS-5 FE Peggy Whitson, TMA1 FE Yuri Fonchakov and ISS-5 FE Sergei Treshev
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the new spacecraft, assisted them with their work in the Russian segment, and participated in a small Russian science programme. They also assisted their Belgian colleague with his work. De Winne, the Belgian astronaut, conducted an ESA programme under the codename of Odessa that comprised 23 experiments. The programme featured research in the fields of biology, human physiology, physical sciences and education. He also talked with six students from universities in Scotland, Italy and The Netherlands who were at the ESA Taxi Flight Operations Coordination Centre (TOCC) at ESTEC in The Netherlands.
The crew landed in the TM34 spacecraft, the final descent of that variant of vehicle. According to Zaletin, the landing itself was “a little hard” as the vehicle hit the ground and tumbled a few times before coming to a halt. It was the first Russian night landing in ten years. The new TMA1 spacecraft, now docked to the ISS, would provide a return capability for the ISS-5 crew in the event of an emergency. This
capability was passed over to the ISS-6 crew in December, though they had not expected to use it.
Milestones
235th manned space flight 94th Russian manned space flight 87th manned Soyuz mission 1st manned Soyuz TMA mission 5th ISS Soyuz mission (5S)
4th ISS Taxi flight 4th ISS visiting mission
1st manned flight of (R7) Soyuz FG launch vehicle
Flight Crew
WETHERBEE, James Donald, 49, USN, commander, 6th mission Previous missions: STS-32 (1990); STS-52 (1992); STS-63 (1995); STS-86 (1997); STS-102 (2001)
LOCKHART, Paul Scott, 46, USAF, pilot, 2nd mission Previous mission: STS-111 (2002)
LOPEZ-ALEGRIA, Michael Eladio, 44, USN, mission specialist 1, 3rd mission Previous missions: STS-73 (1995); STS-92 (2000)
HERRINGTON, John Bennett, 44, USN, mission specialist 2
ISS-6 crew up only:
BOWERSOX, Kenneth Duane, 45, USN, mission specialist 3, ISS-6 commander, 5th mission
Previous missions: STS-50 (1990); STS-61 (1993); STS-73 (1995); STS-82 (1997) BUDARIN, Nikolai Mikhailovich, 49, civilian, Russian mission specialist 4, ISS-6 flight engineer and Soyuz commander, 3rd mission Previous missions: Mir EO-19/STS-71 (1995); Soyuz TM27 (1998)
PETTIT, Donald Roy, 47, civilian, mission specialist 5, US ISS-6 science officer
ISS-5 crew down only:
TRESCHEV, Sergei Vladimiriovich, 43, civilian, Russian ISS-5 flight engineer, mission specialist 3
KORZUN, Valery Nikolayevich, 49, Russian Air Force, ISS-5 and Soyuz commander, mission specialist 4, 2nd mission Previous mission: Soyuz TM24 (1996)
WHITSON, Peggy Annette, 42, civilian, ISS-5 science officer, mission specialist 5
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John Herrington (left) and Michael Lopez-Alegria work on the newly installed Port One (PI) Truss on ISS. Herrington is holding handrails attached to the CETA-B (2) cart
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Flight Log
Higher than allowed oxygen levels detected in the orbiter’s mid-body postponed the 11 November launch attempt, which was reset for 18 November. Technicians found a fatigued flexible hose to be the cause and this was replaced, but during the repair a platform impacted the RMS in the payload bay. The necessary inspections delayed the launch to 22 November. Bad weather at the TAL sites forced a further 24-hour delay in launch before the mission finally got off the ground. Docking with the station was achieved during FD 3 (25 November) and the following day, the P1 Truss was relocated to the port end of the SO Truss and automatically bolted in place. Unbeknown at the time, this would be the last time a Shuttle docked to the station for over 3O months.
The three EVAs on this mission were conducted in support of the truss installation, as well as for a number of other tasks. EVA 1 (26 Nov for 6 hours 45 minutes) saw Lopez-Alegria (EV1) and Herrington (EV2) complete the electrical, power and fluid connections to the P1 Truss and install the SPD, ensuring that the quick disconnection mechanisms were functioning correctly. They also released launch locks on the CETA-B cart and installed the Node Wireless video system External Transceiver Assembly (WETA) antenna. This would give reception for the EVA helmet cameras without the presence of a Shuttle. The second EVA (on Thanksgiving Day, 28 Nov, for 6 hours 10 minutes) saw the crew continue the electrical and plumbing connections and the installation of a second WETA on P1. The CETA-B (or 2) cart was also installed on the S1 Truss and secured to the CETA-A (or 1) cart. The third EVA (30 Nov for 7 hours) saw the completion of the SPD installation and troubleshooting of the stalled MT. The astronauts also freed and deployed a UHF antenna that had become snagged during relocation work.
During the flight, the ISS-5 crew handed over the command of the station to the ISS-6 crew and together, both resident crews worked to repair faulty hardware and install new equipment in the station. STS-113 had delivered over 1,969 kg of hardware and supplies to ISS, including new science experiments. The Shuttle’s engines were used in a series of burns to raise the orbit of the station. The formal hand-over of resident crews occurred shortly after the docking and the completion of safety briefings. Though no one knew it at the time, this would be the last Shuttle-based resident crew exchange for some time. Following undocking on 2 December, the Shuttle encountered four days of landing attempts being waived off due to bad weather, before finally making it on 7 December. This was the first time a mission had received three consecutive days of landing cancellations. This was also the last successfully completed Shuttle mission (launch to landing) for over two-and-a-half years.
Milestones
236th manned space flight
142nd US manned space flight
112th Shuttle mission
19th flight of Endeavour
56th US and 89th flight with EVA operations
16th Shuttle ISS mission
6th Endeavour ISS mission
5th Shuttle ISS resident crew exchange mission
1st native American (Chickasaw nation) to fly and walk in space (Herrington)
On a bright spring day in April 1961, a young Russian pilot climbed aboard a new type of vehicle – a manned spacecraft. He was about to attempt what no one had tried before. A former ballistic missile, adapted for carrying a man but not totally safe from error, was going to blast him on an eight-minute ride from Earth into space. For 108 minutes he would fly around his home planet, then endure, inside his protective spacecraft, the fiery heat of re-entry, before ejecting to descend by parachute to his native soil. In those 108 minutes, Yuri Gagarin moved from obscurity to one of the most famous names in human history. No matter how many people follow his trail from Earth, he will always be the first, the pioneer, the one who took mankind’s first step out of the cradle. On any listing of most space experience in the 45 years since that flight, Gagarin’s name will appear at the very bottom, but his achievement, his courage and his very persona will forever fly higher than any record book can show.
In the Cold War race for technical and national supremacy between America and the Soviet Union, their Arms Race spawned another race, to place the first person into space. Once that was done, their eyes turned towards our nearest solar neighbour, the Moon. This time, the Americans would win the race, but they would also come out losers. Though other missions under the Vostok, Voskhod, Mercury and Gemini programmes were planned it is probable that nothing more would have been achieved that could not have been achieved by later programmes, probably far more safely.
America’s triumph with Apollo was short lived. In the spirit of determination and achievement that Kennedy’s famous speech had engendered in the American psyche, great plans were laid for what would happen after the Moon landing goal had been achieved. The potential for extended duration missions in Earth orbit, orbital research and development flights, and reaching further targets was all lost in a wave of public apathy and political debate on the value of Apollo lunar programme once Apollo 11 had achieved Kennedy’s goal. An expanded lunar exploration programme was abandoned, even with some of the hardware built and paid for. That hardware was placed in museums or left to rot, bygone icons of a forgotten era. America had other more pressing goals at home to think about that seemed to better justify, or at least consumed, the tax dollar.
For the Soviets, losing the Moon race was painful, but they turned their attention to a new target, the creation of a long term space station. Over the next thirty years, their programme and understanding of what it took to spend significant amounts of time in space grew, culminating with the Mir programme. Mir remained in orbit 15 years, and was permanently occupied for almost ten of them. Successive crews battled with shortages, failures and set backs, as well as huge success and hard-won achievement in stretching the human space experience from days and weeks, to months and years. If Apollo was the shining star of the first era of pioneering manned space exploration, then surely Mir was as bright a star in the second period as humans truly began to understand how to live and work in space.
Over in the United States America turned to the Space Shuttle. As with earlier programmes, this was envisaged as just one part pf a large space infrastructure. Grandiose plans included Earth and lunar orbital space bases, a lunar base, manned flights to Mars and even hotels and factories in orbit, all foreseen long before Shuttle ever flew. When it did, the reality of what it could actually do became readily apparent. And dreams remained dreams. The Shuttle could fly short research missions, capture, repair and redeploy space satellites, and fly mixed cargos into and out of space, but it could not do it as regularly or as cheaply as once thought. Shuttle could not reduce the cost per kilogram of reaching orbit, fly every two weeks, and launch everything America, and most of the world wanted to assign to it. And with no orbiting platform to deliver this cargo to, it became little more than an expensive and risky space truck. The loss of Challenger and her crew of seven was the final straw. Soon the commercial customers and military chiefs backed away from Shuttle as a new goal was set – a space station so large that it would need an international group of partners to build, support, and pay for it.
Space Station Freedom was another dream born from those visions of huge space cities in the 1950s and early 1960s. It was one thing aiming for a space station of this complexity, however, but quite another to build and pay for it. Costs, complications and problems grew to bursting point and by the early 1990s, the Space Shuttle, the space station, and even NASA itself, looked in dire straits. In Russia, years of papering over the cracks in both the space programme and the national economy finally caught up with them and the once-mighty Soviet Union and most of the communist world collapsed in an expensive and tragic mess.
Born from the turmoil was a new cooperative programme in space. Russia would join what was now the International Space Station programme. There was still a decade or so of hard work and sometimes fraught discussions, but one thing the ISS programme has shown, as anyone involved in it will underline, is that international teamwork and cooperation can achieve such a global and extensive goal. And the Shuttle could finally prove that it was capable of the task originally envisioned for it way back in those grandiose plans – supplying and constructing a space station. The loss of Columbia in 2003 has dealt a final blow to a Shuttle programme that has been flying for 25 years, although the infrastructure created by ISS will keep the programme going for a while longer.
By the 45th year of human space flight, the Shuttle was on the road to its second recovery, the crew complement of ISS was restored, tourists were paying a lot of money for the chance of making one short flight around the Earth, and a new player had entered the scene – China. The success of ISS is that it has been “international” and perhaps that is the way forward. Large national space programmes are relics of the past and cooperation across the globe in space may help with cooperation across the globe for more terrestrial goals. This book therefore records the trail from Gagarin to this 45th year; the successes and the failures, the milestones and the tragedies. We hope that it provides a handy reference of what has gone before as we stand on the edge of what could be about to happen.
As the 50th anniversaries of these first space flights approach between 2011 and 2021 – the first manned space flights, first EVAs, first docking, first lunar flights, first extended flights, and first space station – the future of human space flight seems to be forward-looking once again. Though the flight path may be unsteady, contingencies and back up plans have to be prepared, and mission objectives may change, Gagarin’s trail is still bright and strong. And, as he said at the moment his rocket left Earth for the stars… “Poyekhali! … Off we go!”
The real quest for space has existed for centuries, ever since man first noticed the stars and began to wonder about them, gradually fostering the desire to visit them. Centuries of Earth-based observations of the cosmos evolved into the science of astronomy. The desire for human “flight” was often intertwined in the early years with a passion for the written word and a vivid imagination, creating numerous stories of fantasy and adventure in the heavens. With the development of the balloon, the chance to actually ascend into the atmosphere gave scientists real experience and data about the difficulties of high-altitude flight, as well as the realisation that there was a limit to our atmosphere. In the closing years of the nineteenth century and opening decades of the twentieth, the development of life support systems, pressurised compartments, diving apparatus, and of course the aircraft, were the important steps along the way to the series of high-altitude, high-speed aircraft and stratospheric balloons that set and surpassed record after record from the 1920s through to the 1950s. The knowledge gained, and the sacrifices made, were the final link in the chain that led to Gagarin’s pioneering journey into orbit.
This highly successful programme began with the first unmanned launch in April 1971 and ended with the de-orbiting of Salyut 7 in February 1991. Two of the stations (Salyut 3 and Salyut 5) were military bases called Almaz. The differences between the “military” (Almaz, or Diamond) and the “civilian” (DOS, Russian for Permanent Orbital Station) stations were in their orbital parameters, durations, the composition of crew members (military officers and engineers for Almaz against civilian flight engineers and guest cosmonauts for Salyut), the openness of reporting of crew activities, and the research programmes. There were setbacks – the first crew to Salyut 1 could not enter the station, the second lost their lives in a re-entry accident, and there were five Soyuz missions which failed to achieve a docking with the station. In addition, there was a launch abort and a pad abort which cancelled Salyut missions. An unmanned Salyut was lost in a launch failure in July 1972, and in April 1973, Salyut (Almaz) 2 was lost shortly after entering orbit. This was followed the next month by the loss of Cosmos 557, which failed even before it received a Salyut identification. Salyut 4, 5, 6 and 7, however, pushed the boundaries of space endurance and demonstrated the wide range of experiments that could be conducted. The missions also demonstrated how much maintenance and trouble-shooting could be conducted. Salyut 6 and 7 also housed a series of visitors from Interkosmos and other countries, flying one-week visiting missions under the command of a veteran Soviet cosmonaut.
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An artists impression of Salyut 1 in orbit, with a Soyuz on docking approach
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Salyut 7 in orbit
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Table 3.2. Salyut and Almaz stations
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Station
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EO crew
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Variant
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Launched
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Re-entry
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Salyut 1
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1
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DOS-1
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1971 Apr 19
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1971 Oct 11
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Salyut
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–
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DOS-2
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1972 Jul 29
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Failed to reach orbit
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Salyut 2
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–
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Almaz-1
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1973 Apr 3
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1973 May 28
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Cosmos 557
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–
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DOS-3
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1972 May 11
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1973 May 22
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Salyut 3
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1
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Almaz-2
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1974 Jun 25
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1975 Jan 24
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Salyut 4
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2
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DOS-4
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1973 Dec 26
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1977 Feb 2
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Salyut 5
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2
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Almaz-3
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1976 Jun 22
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1977 Aug 8
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Salyut 6
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6
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DOS 5-1
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1977 Sep 29
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1982 Jul 29
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Salyut 7
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6
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DOS 5-2
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1982 Apr 19
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1991 Feb 7
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Almaz
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–
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Almaz-4
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Cancelled
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Featuring dual-docking ports, the later Salyut stations allowed crews to dock a pair of Soyuz craft to the same station, or dock a Progress unmanned re-supply craft to re-stock the resident crew or re-supply the consumables on board, thus prolonging the operational life of the station. The US Skylab programme had no such facilities.
The hybrid Salyut was a cylindrical structure, featuring two habitable compartments (transfer and work), with an internal docking port at the front and a modified Soyuz propulsion system at the rear. Power was supplied by two pairs of Soyuz solar panels. The overall length of the station was 15.8 m, with a maximum diameter of 4.15m and a 90m3 habitable volume. The average mass at launch was 18,900kg.
The Salyut 3 and 5 (Almaz) stations were different in design. Still cylindrical, the Soyuz docked with a rear port instead of a forward port. There was an airlock chamber for EVAs (although none were ever conducted from either Almaz), a work compartment and a living compartment. Almaz was 14.55 m long, with a maximum diameter of 4.15m and a similar habitable volume to that of Salyut. The station had larger arrays, however, and incorporated a detachable data capsule that could be ejected at the end of the military-orientated mission.
Salyut 4 was very similar to Salyut 1 but featured three steerable solar arrays, with a larger surface area and more capacity to produce electricity for the increased number of science experiments.
Salyut 6 and 7 resembled the earlier Salyuts but featured docking ports at the front and back, giving the capacity to re-supply and refuel the station using Progress freighters. Two Soyuz vessels could dock at the same time and the first EVAs for Soviet cosmonauts since 1969 were conducted from these stations. These record-breaking vehicles laid the ground work for Mir, testing hardware, techniques and systems for the larger and more capable station that would follow.
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Int. Designation
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1966-047A
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Launched
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3 June 1966
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Launch Site
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Pad 19, Cape Kennedy, Florida
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Landed
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6 June 1966
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Landing Site
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Western Atlantic Ocean
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Launch Vehicle
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Titan II GLV No. 9; spacecraft serial number 9
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Duration
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3 days 20 min 50 sec
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Callsign
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Gemini Nine
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Objective
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Rendezvous and docking mission; EVA activities
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Flight Crew
STAFFORD, Thomas Patten Jr., 35, USAF, command pilot, 2nd mission Previous mission: Gemini 6 (1965)
CERNAN, Eugene Andrew, 32, USN, pilot
Flight Log
Gemini 9 certainly seemed to be a jinxed 13th US manned space flight, even before it got airborne. The prime Gemini 9 crew were killed in an air crash in St Louis on 28 February 1966, when their T-38 aircraft hit the roof of the building housing the Gemini 9 spacecraft, before bouncing off and crashing into a car park. Command pilot Elliott See and pilot Charles Bassett were replaced by the back-up crew, Tom Stafford and Eugene Cernan, who had landed at St Louis in a second aircraft shortly afterwards.
On 17 May, the Agena 9 target rocket for the three-day rendezvous, docking and spacewalking mission flew into the Atlantic Ocean after a second-stage malfunction, and the mission was scrubbed. After the Agena 6 failure in October 1965, NASA began to develop an alternative target without its own engine, called the Augmented Target Docking Adapter, ATDA, should the Agena fail again. On 1 June, an Atlas booster carried ATDA into orbit, while Stafford and Cernan waited for their blastoff within the tight, 40-second window. Computer problems grounded them at T — 2 minutes. Stafford, the Gemini 6 pilot, had now been to the pad five times and had lifted off only once.
However, he and Cernan were at last airborne at 08: 39 hrs on 3 June, heading for what scientists were expecting to be a rather unusual sight, as signals from the ATDA indicated that its payload shrouds had not separated fully. They were right. Stafford gave Gemini 9 its trademark, describing the ATDA as an “angry alligator”. They couldn’t dock but, as planned, backed off and conducted two more rendezvous. During the manoeuvres in the 28.9° inclination orbit, the astronauts reached a peak
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The ATDA docking target was dubbed the “angry alligator” by the crew of Gemini 9
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altitude of 311 km (195 miles). Cernan’s planned spacewalk was delayed to 5 June, because the astronauts felt exhausted.
The Gemini pilot was equipped with an enlarged EVA Life Support System (ELSS) on his chest, with its own heat exchanger to cool ventilator air and to provide 30 minutes of emergency oxygen. Cernan’s tether was 7.62 m (25 ft) long. He had planned to don the US Air Force manned manoeuvring unit, still attached to a tether, which was housed in the adapter section of the spacecraft. The AMU weighed 76 kg (168 lb) and was powered by nitrogen peroxide thrusters. Cernan’s legs were protected from the AMU’s exhaust by dark grey leggings of eleven layers of aluminised film. He donned the device but never flew it because Stafford called him back after a record 2 hours 8 minutes outside. Cernan found the spacewalk utterly exhausting, as controlling his movement in weightlessness was almost impossible. Compounding the problem were the snaking umbilicals of his spacesuit, the AMU, poor communications when Cernan switched to the AMU circuit, plus the inability of his spacesuit’s environmental control system to handle his body heat. Cernan ended up with a fogged faceplate and couldn’t see out.
Gemini 9 did, however, perform a party piece at the end of the 3 day 20 minute 50 second mission, splashing down just 1.44 km (1 mile) from the recovery ship
USS Wasp, a target miss of just 704 m (2,300 ft) some 552 km (343 miles) east of Bermuda.
Milestones
21st manned space flight
13th US manned space flight
7th Gemini manned flight
1st US manned space flight by back-up crew
2nd US and 3rd flight with EVA operations
Closest splashdown of a Gemini to a recovery vessel (0.38 nautical miles)
Flight Crew
YOUNG, John Watts, 36, USN, command pilot, 2nd mission Previous mission: Gemini 3 (1965)
COLLINS, Michael, 36, USAF, pilot
Flight Log
The 299th Atlas (and the 100th NASA Atlas) vehicle took off from Pad 15 on 18 July, taking with it the Agena 10 target stage, which duly entered its programmed orbit. Astronauts John Young and Michael Collins were launched 100 minutes later at 17: 20 hrs, and within 5 hours 52 minutes were docked with Agena 10. Young had used rather too much fuel, however, and practice dockings were cancelled. The Taciturn Two, as the astronauts were described, used the Agena 10 engine to boost them into a record 763 km (474 miles) apogee in the 28.9° orbit, increasing the speed of the docked combination by 129 m/sec during the Agena’s 80-second burn. The boost captured the attention of the crew more than the scenery did, because with the huge stage before their windows, the view was limited. The crew rested for nine hours, and on the next mission “day’’ relit the Agena to reduce the orbital height in preparation for a rendezvous with the second target – the dead Agena 8 stage used during the Gemini 8 mission the previous March.
Before the rendezvous, Collins performed a stand-up EVA, standing on his seat and poking his head and shoulders out of the spacecraft hatch, mainly to set up an astronomical camera and to retrieve cosmic dust particle collectors from the outside of the spacecraft, two of the 16 science experiments being flown on the mission. During the 49-minute exercise, both astronauts were badly affected by leaking lithium hydroxide from the spacecraft’s environmental control system. Their eyes streaming and throats burning, they cut short the EVA. The Agena 10 was undocked after 38 hours 47 minutes attached to Gemini 10, while the latter, using its OAMS thrusters, made an optical rendezvous with the Agena 8 without the use of radar.
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Gemini 10 docking with its Agena target, as seen from Mike Collins’ window
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On 20 July, Young piloted Gemini to within 3 m (10 ft) of the rocket stage and Collins opened the hatch for his full EVA, during which he recovered a cosmic dust particle collector from its side. He lost a camera in the process as he wrestled with a nitrogen gas-powered hand-held manoeuvring unit and the annoying tendency to float up and away from where he meant to be. A fault on another camera meant that no pictures were produced of Collins next to the Agena. The planned one-and-a-half – hour spacewalk was called off after 39 minutes because of concern over usage of the dwindling station-keeping thruster fuel. Getting the 15 m (49 ft) tether and the astronaut back into the spacecraft took a lot of effort and having done so, just before retro-fire, the crew opened the hatch for three minutes to dump some rubbish into orbit, namely the chest pack and tether.
Gemini 10 splashed down 846 km (526 miles) east of Cape Kennedy, 5.4 km (3 miles) from the recovery ship, USS Guadalcanal at T + 2 days 22 hours 46 minutes 39 seconds.
Milestones
22nd manned space flight 14th US manned space flight 8th Gemini manned flight 1st re-boost into high orbit
1st mission to rendezvous with two separate spacecraft 1st astronaut to make bodily contact with another spacecraft 1st US mission to launch on the day originally scheduled 3rd US and 4th flight with EVA operations
Flight Crew
CONRAD, Charles “Pete” Jr., 36, USN, command pilot, 2nd mission Previous mission: Gemini 5 (1965)
GORDON, Richard Francis Jr., 37, USN, pilot
Flight Log
Gemini 11’s task was to simulate a take-off by an Apollo lunar lander, and rendezvous and docking with an Apollo Command Module in lunar orbit, by taking off and docking with the Agena 11 target within 94 minutes, or one orbit. This meant that after the successful ascent of Agena 11 on the delayed launch day of 12 September, Gemini 11 would have just two seconds in its launch window. Its Titan II booster met its target within half a second, spewing into life with that characteristic high-pitched whine as the hypergolic propellants ignited spontaneously on contact.
Once in 28.8° inclination orbit, Conrad and Gordon switched on their rendezvous radar and computer and the space chase began. Rendezvous was achieved within 85 minutes and the ebullient Conrad jockeyed Gemini’s nose inside the Agena target. For the first time in the programme, the crew performed docking practice, with Gordon being the first Gemini pilot to dock. The Agena was given a quick test burn in preparation for a longer burn later in the mission which was designed to take the crew to a record altitude.
On 13 September, after a rest, Gordon opened the hatch to begin an EVA, which everyone hoped would at last dispel doubts about man’s ability to work in space. The burly Gemini pilot floated towards the Agena docking collar and sat astride it to attach a tether. He used a 10 m (33 ft) tether and a hand-held manoeuvring unit. Riding like a cowboy, as Conrad described him, Gordon had great difficulty remaining in one place and not floating upwards. The effort proved too much for the spacesuit’s environmental control system and Gordon became blinded with sweat. Conrad called him back after just 38 minutes. Gemini had just one more flight to prove
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Gemini 11 flies over India and Sri Lanka
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that effective EVA was possible. The crew overcame their disappointment with the big Agena burn, lasting 26 seconds, over the Canary Islands.
En route to a high point of 1,372 km (853 miles) over Western Australia, the highest Earth orbit manned apogee, Gordon took an epic photo of India and Sri Lanka from a height of about 800 km (497 miles). The Agena was used to reduce the orbital height, in preparation for a stand-up EVA by Gordon lasting 128 minutes, during which he conducted several of the mission’s science experiments and also had a cat nap.
Finally, Gemini 11 undocked from Agena 11, which was left dangling at the end of a 30 m (98 ft) tether. Conrad fired the thrusters to put the combination into a spin and thus created artificial gravity. After separating from the Agena and backing away, the crew performed further rendezvous exercises and a two-minute “equipment jettison” out of an opened hatch, before sitting back for a fully computer-controlled retro-fire, re-entry and landing. The eventful mission ended 1,120 km (696 miles) east of Miami, within 3 km (2 miles) of the recovery ship, USS Guam, at T + 2 days 23 hours 17 minutes 8 seconds.
Milestones
23rd manned space flight 15th US manned space flight 9th Gemini manned flight
1st manned mission to create artificial gravity in orbit 1st computer-controlled retro-fire re-entry and landing 4th US and 5th flight with EVA operations
On 1 November 1966, NASA civilian test pilot William Dana, 35, flew X-15-3 to 93 km during the programme’s tenth astro-flight.
Flight Crew
LOVELL, James Arthur Jr., 38, USN, command pilot, 2nd mission Previous mission: Gemini 7 (1965)
ALDRIN, Edwin Eugene “Buzz” Jr., 36, USAF, pilot
Flight Log
Apart from the now customary Agena rendezvous and docking, the most important task of Gemini 12 was to overcome the perennial spacewalking problem. For this, astronaut Buzz Aldrin was to have the additional assistance of straps, harnesses, Velcro patches and even “golden slippers” spacesuit boot holders, to help keep him in place, so he could do really effective work without overworking his environmental control system. The crew walked to the pad with “The” and “End” cards on their backs and were told when they reached Gemini 12 that theirs was “the last chance… no reruns… show will close after this performance”. The show began with the Agena 12 launch from Pad 14 and followed that with Gemini 12’s lift-off at 15: 26hrs local time on 11 November. The flight achieved a 28.9° inclination orbit, which would at one point of the flight reach an apogee of 301 km (187 miles).
Fortunately, pilot Aldrin had written a thesis on manned orbital rendezvous before he was selected as an astronaut, so when the spacecraft’s rendezvous radar failed, his slide rule and sextant came out. To the admiration of ground controllers, rendezvous was achieved at T + 3 hours 46 minutes with a docking 28 minutes later. The astronauts had planned to use Agena’s engine for a modest re-boost to an altitude of 640 km (398 miles), but controllers were concerned about a potentially dangerous malfunction and instead ordered the crew to use the Gemini engines to perform “rendezvous” with a solar eclipse over South America, which was an added bonus to the mission. Aldrin then performed a 2 hour 39 minute stand-up EVA (SUEVA), taking photographs casually leaning over the spacecraft like a tourist.
The following day, 12 November, mission planners watched with some trepidation as Aldrin began the most important EVA so far. It went swimmingly and Aldrin
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Astronaut Eugene Cernan (left) jokes with the Gemini 12 crew as they prepare to board the capsule
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did everything he planned during the successful 2 hour 8 minute spacewalk. One of his tasks had been to attach a tether to the Agena 12 target, which later allowed the astronauts to perform an artificial gravity test. On the third day, Aldrin opened the hatch again and made a 51-minute SUEVA, conducting some of Gemini’s 14 science experiments. Thruster problems continued to be a concern throughout the mission but did not prevent a safe re-entry and landing at T + 3 days 22 hours 34 minutes 31 seconds, just 4.16 km (3 miles) from USS Wasp. The Gemini programme had been concluded with ten manned missions, clocking up 80 man-days in space. What was remarkable was that throughout the programme, the Soviets did not launch one cosmonaut into space. America was on its way – to the Moon.
Milestones
24th manned space flight 16th US manned space flight 10th Gemini manned flight
1st manned mission to witness solar eclipse in space 5th US and 6th flight with EVA operations
The next US mission after the end of the Gemini programme should have been the mission of Apollo 1 in February 1967. The tragic events on 27 January 1967 which prevented this mission are covered in detail under the chapter Quest for Space (Chapter 2).
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Int. Designation
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1983-026A
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Launched
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4 April 1983
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Launch Site
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Pad 39A, Kennedy Space Center, Florida
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Landed
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9 April 1983
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Landing Site
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Runway 22, Edwards Air Force Base, California
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Launch Vehicle
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OV-099 Challenger/ET-8/SRB A17; A18/SSME #1 2017; #2 2015; #3 2012
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Duration
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5 days 0 hrs 23 min 42 sec
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Callsign
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Challenger
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Objective
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Maiden flight of OV-099 (Challenger); EVA demonstration; deployment of first TDRS
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Flight Crew
WEITZ, Paul Joseph, 50, civilian, commander, 2nd mission Previous mission: Skylab 2 (1973)
BOBKO, Karol Joseph, 45, USAF, pilot
MUSGRAVE, Franklin Story, 47, civilian, mission specialist 1
PETERSON, Donald Herod, 49, civilian, mission specialist 2
Flight Log
The first Challenger orbiter mission was originally due to have taken place on 27 January 1983 but was delayed by a series of potentially disastrous engine problems which first came to light after Challenger’s Flight Readiness Firing on 18 December
1982. Engineers detected an abnormal level of gaseous hydrogen. A second FRF was scheduled for 25 January and the TDRS payload was removed from Challenger. The hydrogen leak was detected again and this time was traced to a 2 cm (| in) crack in the No.1 main engine combustion chamber coolant outlet manifold. Engine 1 was ordered to be replaced. TDRS was replaced, only to be slightly damaged by fine salt sea spray after a severe storm. It was back inside Challenger’s cargo bay by 19 March.
Worse was to follow. The replacement engine 1 was found to be faulty and had to be replaced itself, then an inspection of the No.2 and 3 engines revealed hairline cracks which had to be repaired. Challenger sat engineless on the pad. At last, on 4 April
1983, at the comparatively late hour of 18:30 KSC time, Challenger ascended flawlessly into clear blue skies, the only anomaly being the annoying deposition of some black soot on Challenger’s windows at SRB separation.
The rookie crew (called the F Troop after a TV programme and the fact that they were the sixth Shuttle crew) proceeded to achieve the main objective – to deploy NASA’s first $100 million communications station in space, TDRS, on only the second IUS solid propellant two-stage upper stage flown. This was duly deployed
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The first Shuttle EVA demonstration was conducted during STS-6
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from its tilt table and was later injected into geostationary transfer orbit. A second stage failure stranded the satellite, however, and through no fault of its own the Shuttle was tarred with the same brush by some of the press. TDRS was eventually nudged into its planned geostationary orbit by careful firing of its own thrusters over a period of 58 days.
Maximum altitude reached by Challenger in the 28.4° orbit was 248 km (154 miles). On 8 April, Story Musgrave (EV1) and Donald Peterson (EV2) made the delayed EVA that was planned for STS-5, lasting 4 hours 17 minutes, to check out the Shuttle spacesuit and practice making space repairs, featuring in some spectacular TV. It was also the first US EVA since Skylab 4, nine years earlier. Later, Challenger came home to Edwards Air Force Base, landing on runway 22 at T + 5 days 0 hours 23 minutes 42 seconds, the shortest four-crew space flight.
Milestones
89th manned space flight 37th US manned space flight 6th Shuttle flight 1st flight of Challenger
16th US and 22nd flight with EVA operations
1st Shuttle-based EVA
1st TDRS deployment mission
Flight Crew
TITOV, Vladimir Georgyevich, 36, Soviet Air Force, commander STREKALOV, Gennady Mikhailovich, 43, civilian, flight engineer 1, 2nd mission
Previous mission: Soyuz T3 (1980)
SEREBROV, Aleksandr Aleksandrovich, 39, civilian, research engineer, 2nd mission
Previous mission: Soyuz T7 (1982)
Flight Log
Salyut 7 remained empty during the Russian winter of 1982-3 and was joined by the unmanned Cosmos 1443 module in March. Trained to work aboard Salyut and the new module were Vladimir Titov, Aleksandr Serebrov, making the first successive national manned space flight, and Gennady Strekalov. Their attempt to dock with Salyut, however, was doomed very soon after lift-off, at 19: 11 hrs local time from Baikonur, when the payload shroud tore away Soyuz T’s rendezvous radar antenna which only partially deployed. The crew used the RCS thrusters to try to shake the antenna free but to no avail. In trying to hide the serious problem, these engine firings were reported as tests of the attitude control system.
Although mission rules would normally dictate a return to Earth, the rookie commander Titov got permission to try a visual rendezvous and attempted docking using radar readings from the ground. The docking was perceived as having a low success probability by the ground controllers. It could have been a complete disaster, for Soyuz T8 flew past Salyut 7 at great speed, missing a catastrophic collision by 160 m (525 ft). Titov had made an optically guided approach to Salyut’s rear docking port after a 50 second rocket burn. The seventh space station flight had to be aborted not because of lack of power but because propellant reserves were not high enough to try again. The difficulty in guiding the Soyuz T to the station becomes more apparent when it was later revealed by Titov that he had not trained for a fully manual docking
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Soyuz T8 crew during a training session in the Salyut 7 mock-up, something they did not put into practice in space. L to r Titov, Serebrov, Strekalov
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approach and was unsure of his depth perception through the spacecraft periscope as he attempted a difficult manoeuvre.
The crew, which would have been the first three-man long duration crew since Soyuz 11, came home 96 km (60 miles) northeast of Arkalyk at T + 2 days 0 hours 17 minutes 48 seconds. Maximum altitude reached in the 51.6° orbit was 300 km (186 miles).
Milestones
90th manned space flight 53rd Soviet manned space flight 46th Soyuz manned space flight 7th Soyuz T manned space flight
1st space flight by crewman on successive national missions
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Int. Designation
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1985-092A
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Launched
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3 October 1985
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Launch Site
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Pad 39A, Kennedy Space Center, Florida
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Landed
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7 October 1985
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Landing Site
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Runway 23, Edwards Air Force Base, California
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Launch Vehicle
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OV-104 Atlantis/ET-25/SRB BI-021/SSME #1 2011
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#2 2019; #3 2017
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Duration
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4 days 1 hr 44min 38 sec
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Callsign
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Atlantis
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Objective
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2nd classified DoD Shuttle mission
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Flight Crew
BOBKO, Karol Joseph, 48, USAF, commander, 3rd mission Previous missions: STS-6 (1983); STS 51-D (1985)
GRABE, Ronald John, 40, USAF, pilot HILMERS, David Carl, 35, USMC, mission specialist 1 STEWART, Robert Lee, 43, US Army, mission specialist 2, 2nd mission Previous mission: STS 41-B (1984)
PAILES, William, 33, USAF, payload specialist 1
Flight Log
The maiden flight of the Atlantis orbiter began in spectacular style from Pad 39A at 11: 15hrs local time, but the first anyone was to have known about the mission was nine minutes earlier, when the ground launch sequencer started the final countdown. Mission 51-J was a Department of Defense flight and is one of the most anonymous in Shuttle history because of its classification. It is thought to have deployed two DSCS communications satellites into orbit aboard an IUS upper stage. According to data revealed by the North American Air Defense Command, NORAD, Atlantis reached a record 512km (318 miles) altitude in the 28.5° orbit.
Also on board was an experiment called Bios, which studied the damage to biological samples by high-energy cosmic rays. The mission also marked the end of the brief career of the USA Air Force Manned Space Engineer corps, whose William Pailes was the second and last to fly. At one time, one or two representatives from the MSE corps were to have flown every DoD mission. After the Challenger accident the next year, these already limited opportunities disappeared altogether.
Atlantis made a longer than usual return from its high orbit, landing on runway 23 at Edwards Air Force Base at T + 4 days 1 hour 44 minutes 38 seconds.
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This Earth image is one of the few released for the classified STS 51-J mission
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111th manned space flight 52nd US manned space flight 21st Shuttle mission 1st flight of Atlantis
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