STS-27

Flight Crew

GIBSON, Robert Lee “Hoot”, 42, USN, commander, 3rd mission Previous missions: STS 41-B (1984); STS 61-C (1986)

GARDNER, Guy Spence, 40, USAF, pilot

MULLANE, Richard Michael, 43, USAF, mission specialist 1, 2nd mission Previous mission: STS 41-D (1984)

ROSS, Jerry Lynn, 40, USAF, mission specialist 2, 2nd mission Previous mission: STS 61-B (1985)

SHEPHERD, William McMichael, 39, USN, mission specialist 3

Flight Log

STS 62-A, the first manned polar orbiting space flight, was to have been launched from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California in 1986. The flight was cancelled and the Vandenberg pad mothballed after the Challenger disaster. It re-emerged as STS-27, with a new commander, Hoot Gibson, replacing Bob Crippen, and a new mission specialist, William Shepherd, replacing Dale Gardner. Orbiter Atlantis was equipped with an enormous electronic intelligence and digital imaging reconnaissance satellite which was to be placed into a 57° inclination orbit, the highest inclination permitted by a Shuttle from the KSC.

The first launch attempt was called off on 1 December with the crew aboard at T — 9 minutes due to high winds at altitude. There was a minor delay the following day, before the spectacular take-off at 09: 30 hrs local time, with the Shuttle making a dramatic, sloping lateral movement away from the pad as it performed a 140° roll programme and headed up the east coast of the USA. Debris from the top of one of the SRBs broke away and severely damaged some of the underside of Atlantis, as the crew would see after they landed. Once in orbit the official communications, which began at T — 9 minutes, ended for this military mission.

According to analysis and ground observations, the giant Lacrosse was deployed from the payload bay by the RMS and inspected. Its 45 m (147 ft) span solar panels were supposed to unfurl but did not at first. If an EVA was required to free the panels it was not announced but the panels were freed, possibly by an RMS-induced shake, and the deployment followed at about T + 7 hours into the mission. Little information about it was released, except that a gallon of water had leaked in the cockpit. STS-27 marked the third time that eleven people were in space at once, with six cosmonauts on board the Mir space station at the same time.

The flight ended at T + 4 days 9 hours 5 minutes 35 seconds on runway 17 at Edwards Air Force Base after a northerly approach from its high-inclination orbit, only the second afternoon landing in the Shuttle programme. The crew busied themselves examining the underside of the orbiter, which had suffered extensive damage to its heatshield tiles, resulting in the need to replace 707 of them, the greatest tile loss on the programme. Despite this, STS-27 had qualified Atlantis for the Return – to-Flight programme.

Milestones

123rd manned space flight 57th US manned space flight 27th Shuttle mission 3rd flight of Atlantis