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STS-61-A

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Overview

Destination: Low Earth Orbit
Mission:

Low Earth Orbit Launch Complex 39A Kennedy Space Center, FL, USA

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.

Space Shuttle

Family: Space Shuttle
Configuration:

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.

Specifications
  • Stages
    2
  • Length
    56.1 m
  • Diameter
    8.0 m
  • Fairing Diameter
  • Launch Mass
    2030 T
  • Thrust
    28200 kN
Family
  • Name
    Space Shuttle
  • Family
    Space Shuttle
  • Variant
  • Alias
  • Full Name
    Space Shuttle
Payload Capacity
  • Launch Cost
    $450000000
  • Low Earth Orbit
    27500 kg
  • Geostationary Transfer Orbit
  • Direct Geostationary
  • Sun-Synchronous Capacity

Space Shuttle Challenger


In-active Human Rated Crew On-board: 8 Crew Capacity: 7 Payload Capacity: 27500 kg
Destination: Low Earth Orbit
Serial Number: OV-099

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

Crew


Henry 'Hank' Hartsfield

Commander - American - ( NASA )

Status: Deceased

Date of Birth: Nov. 21, 1933
Date of Death: July 14, 2014

Steven R. Nagel

Pilot - American - ( NASA )

Status: Deceased

Date of Birth: Oct. 27, 1946
Date of Death: Aug. 21, 2014

Ernst Messerschmid

Payload Specialist - German - ( DLR )

Status: Retired

Date of Birth: May 21, 1945
Age: 78

Reinhard Furrer

Payload Specialist - German - ( DLR )

Status: Deceased

Date of Birth: Nov. 25, 1940
Date of Death: Sept. 9, 1995

Wubbo Ockels

Payload Specialist - Dutch - ( ESA )

Status: Deceased

Date of Birth: March 28, 1946
Date of Death: May 18, 2014

Guion Bluford

Mission Specialist - American - ( NASA )

Status: Retired

Date of Birth: Nov. 22, 1942
Age: 81

James Buchli

Mission Specialist - American - ( NASA )

Status: Retired

Date of Birth: June 20, 1945
Age: 78

Bonnie J. Dunbar

Mission Specialist - American - ( NASA )

Status: Retired

Date of Birth: March 3, 1949
Age: 74

National Aeronautics and Space Administration

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Administrator: Bill Nelson Founded: 1958 Successes: 115 Failures: 20 Pending: 6

Agency Type: Government

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 WIKI

Kennedy Space Center, FL, USA

Launch Complex 39A


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