Space Shuttle Challenger / OV-099 | STS-61-A
Launch Successful
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Instantaneous launch window.
Launch Window
Oct. 30, 1985, 5 p.m. - Oct. 30, 1985, 5 p.m.
Instantaneous launch window.
Oct. 30, 1985, 5 p.m. - Oct. 30, 1985, 5 p.m.
STS-61-A was the twenty-second space shuttle flight and ninth for Space Shuttle Challenger. It was a scientific spacelab mission funded entirely by West Germany. The payload operations were controlled from the German Space Operations Center as opposed to the regular NASA centers.
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: Nov. 21, 1933
Date of Death:
July 14, 2014
Date of
Birth: Oct. 27, 1946
Date of Death:
Aug. 21, 2014
Date of
Birth: May 21, 1945
Age: 79
Date of
Birth: Nov. 25, 1940
Date of Death:
Sept. 9, 1995
Date of
Birth: March 28, 1946
Date of Death:
May 18, 2014
Date of
Birth: Nov. 22, 1942
Age: 82
Date of
Birth: June 20, 1945
Age: 79
Date of
Birth: March 3, 1949
Age: 76
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.
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