STS-33

Flight Crew

GREGORY, Frederick Drew, 48, USAF, commander, 2nd mission Previous mission: STS 51-B (1985)

BFAHA, John Elmer, 47, USAF, pilot, 2nd mission Previous mission: STS-29 (1989)

CARTER Jr., Manley Fanier “Sonny”, 42, USN, mission specialist 1 MUSGRAVE, Franklin Story, 54, civilian, mission specialist 2, 3rd mission Previous missions: STS-6 (1983); STS 51-F (1985)

THORNTON, Kathryn Cordell Ryan, 37, mission specialist 3

Flight Log

With STS-33 flying after STS-34 but before STS-32, it was understandably difficult to keep track of how many Space Shuttles had been launched by November 1989. STS-33 Discovery was the thirty-second Space Shuttle mission but only the thirty-first to reach space. It was due to launch in August 1989 but had to make way for the delayed STS-28 and for the STS-34 planetary launch window. It was also the first Shuttle to fly with a crewman replacing one who had died. Pilot David Griggs had been killed in the crash of an aerobatics plane in June 1989 and was replaced on the mission by John Blaha, recently returned from STS-29, who was thus making a second flight in a record seven months.

The mission was unusual in that while it was a classified military affair, it carried two civilian crew persons, mission specialists Kathryn Thornton on her first flight, and the veteran Story Musgrave on his third (though both had previous experience in classified roles. Thornton had worked with the Army Foreign Science and Technology Center before being selected for astronaut training and Musgrave had served in the USMC in the 1950s). The fact that the third mission specialist, Manley Carter, was a doctor like Musgrave and that Thornton was a nuclear physicist indicated that several biomedical-radiation crew experiments were on the schedule after the deployment of

the main payload. This was a SIGINT electronic signals intelligence satellite, ELINT, deployed in the 28° inclination, 561 km (249 miles) apogee orbit.

Discovery was raring to go on the first attempt and was held for just 90 seconds at T — 5 minutes before making a spectacular departure from Pad 39B at 19: 23 hrs local time, turning night into day and the quiet peace of the Cape’s lagoons into a frightening cacophony. The SIGINT was deployed on orbit seven. The flight was due to last four days but was extended for almost a day by excessive winds at Edwards, where it was to have made the first night landing since the Challenger accident. Discovery was waived off again by one orbit and after its long re-entry from high orbit was diverted from the concrete runway to runway 04 at Edwards, landing at T + 5 days 0 hours 6 minutes 48 seconds.

Milestones

129th manned space flight 62nd US manned space flight

1st military manned flight with “civilian” and female crew

32nd Shuttle mission

9th flight of Discovery

5th classified DoD Shuttle mission