STS-51-F was the nineteenth flight of the shuttle program and the eighth flight of Space Shuttle Challenger. It flew in orbit for 8 days performing science in Spacelab 2.
The Space Shuttle is a retired, partially reusable low Earth orbital spacecraft system operated from 1981 to 2011 by the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) as part of the Space Shuttle program. Its official program name was Space Transportation System (STS). Five complete Space Shuttle orbiter vehicles were built and flown on a total of 135 missions from 1981 to 2011.
Space Shuttle Challenger (Orbiter Vehicle Designation: OV-099) was the second orbiter of NASA's space shuttle program to be put into service, after Columbia. Challenger was built by Rockwell International's Space Transportation Systems Division, in Downey, California. Its maiden flight, STS-6, began on April 4, 1983. The orbiter was launched and landed nine times before breaking apart 73 seconds into its tenth mission, STS-51-L, on January 28, 1986, resulting in the death of all seven crew members, including a civilian school teacher. It was the first of two shuttles to be destroyed in flight, the other being Columbia, in 2003. The accident led to a two-and-a-half-year grounding of the shuttle fleet; flights resumed in 1988, with STS-26 flown by Discovery. Challenger was replaced by Endeavour, which was built from structural spares ordered by NASA in the construction contracts for Discovery and Atlantis.
Space Shuttle Details
Date of
Birth: Oct. 11, 1936
Date of Death:
Aug. 21, 2013
Date of
Birth: July 19, 1943
Age: 81
Date of
Birth: May 15, 1942
Age: 82
Date of
Birth: Nov. 17, 1944
Age: 80
Date of
Birth: Oct. 17, 1926
Date of Death:
Oct. 5, 1993
Date of
Birth: March 7, 1936
Age: 88
Date of
Birth: Aug. 19, 1935
Age: 89
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration is an independent agency of the executive branch of the United States federal government responsible for the civilian space program, as well as aeronautics and aerospace research. NASA have many launch facilities but most are inactive. The most commonly used pad will be LC-39B at Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
INFO WIKIA batch of 22 satellites for the Starlink mega-constellation - SpaceX's project for space-based Internet communication system.
Ku-band geostationary communication satellite for China Satcom at 110.5° East, replacing ChinaSat 10.
A batch of 23 satellites for the Starlink mega-constellation - SpaceX's project for space-based Internet communication system.
A batch of 23 satellites for the Starlink mega-constellation - SpaceX's project for space-based Internet communication system. First Starlink launch …
The first of five BlackSky Technology missions to deploy its new next-generation BlackSky Gen-3 satellites. The commercial constellation of Gen-3 sat…
A batch of 21 satellites for the Starlink mega-constellation - SpaceX's project for space-based Internet communication system.
A batch of 21 satellites for the Starlink mega-constellation - SpaceX's project for space-based Internet communication system.
Demonstration flight of the Long March 8A rocket with upgraded first stage and boosters engines, and a new larger liquid hydrogen/liquid oxygen secon…
A batch of 23 satellites for the Starlink mega-constellation - SpaceX's project for space-based Internet communication system.
Fourth batch of five satellites for the French Kinéis IoT constellation designed to operate with 25 nanosatellites of 30 kg each.