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STS-51-G

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Overview

Destination: Low Earth Orbit
Mission: Communications

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

STS-51-G was the eighteenth flight of the shuttle program and fifth for Space Shuttle Discovery. Sultan Salman Al Saud of Saudi Arabia was on board as a payload specialist; he became the first Arab, the first Muslim and first member of a royal family to fly into space. It was the first shuttle flight to fly without an astronaut from the pre-Shuttle era. Its mission was to deploy 3 10 satellites.

Space Shuttle Discovery OV-103

Family: Space Shuttle
Configuration: OV-103

Space Shuttle Discovery is one of the orbiters from NASA's Space Shuttle program and the third of five fully operational orbiters to be built. Its first mission, STS-41-D, flew from August 30 to September 5, 1984. Over 27 years of service it launched and landed 39 times, gathering more spaceflights than any other spacecraft to date.

Specifications
  • Minimum Stage
    1
  • Max Stage
    3
  • Length
    38.1 m
  • Diameter
    8.4 m
  • Fairing Diameter
  • Launch Mass
    2040 T
  • Thrust
    28200 kN
Family
  • Name
    Space Shuttle Discovery OV-103
  • Family
    Space Shuttle
  • Variant
    OV-103
  • Alias
    Discovery
  • Full Name
    Space Shuttle Discovery OV-103
Payload Capacity
  • Launch Cost
    $450000000
  • Low Earth Orbit
    24400 kg
  • Geostationary Transfer Orbit
  • Direct Geostationary
  • Sun-Synchronous Capacity

Space Shuttle Discovery


In-active Human Rated Crew On-board: 7 Crew Capacity: 7 Payload Capacity: 27500 kg
Destination: Low Earth Orbit
Serial Number: OV-103

Space Shuttle Discovery (Orbiter Vehicle Designation: OV-103) is one of the orbiters from NASA's Space Shuttle program and the third of five fully operational orbiters to be built. Its first mission, STS-41-D, flew from August 30 to September 5, 1984. Over 27 years of service it launched and landed 39 times, gathering more spaceflights than any other spacecraft to date. Discovery became the third operational orbiter to enter service, preceded by Columbia and Challenger. It embarked on its last mission, STS-133, on February 24, 2011 and touched down for the final time at Kennedy Space Center on March 9, having spent a cumulative total of almost a full year in space. Discovery performed both research and International Space Station (ISS) assembly missions. It also carried the Hubble Space Telescope into orbit. Discovery was the first operational shuttle to be retired, followed by Endeavour and then Atlantis.

Space Shuttle Details

Crew


John M. Fabian

Mission Specialist - American - ( NASA )

Status: Retired

Date of Birth: Jan. 28, 1939
Age: 84

Daniel Brandenstein

Commander - American - ( NASA )

Status: Retired

Date of Birth: Jan. 17, 1943
Age: 80

John Oliver Creighton

Pilot - American - ( NASA )

Status: Retired

Date of Birth: April 28, 1943
Age: 79

Steven R. Nagel

Mission Specialist - American - ( NASA )

Status: Deceased

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

Shannon Lucid

Mission Specialist - American - ( NASA )

Status: Retired

Date of Birth: Jan. 14, 1943
Age: 80

Patrick Baudry

Payload Specialist - French - ( CNES )

Status: Retired

Date of Birth: March 6, 1946
Age: 77

Sultan bin Salman Al Saud

Payload Specialist - Saudi Arabian - ( KACST-SRI )

Status: Retired

Date of Birth: June 27, 1956
Age: 66

United Space Alliance

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Founded: 1995 Successes: 50 Failures: 1 Pending: 0

Agency Type: Commercial

United Space Alliance (USA) is a spaceflight operations company. USA is a joint venture which was established in August 1995 as a Limited Liability Company (LLC), equally owned by Boeing and Lockheed Martin.

INFO WIKI

Kennedy Space Center, FL, USA

Launch Complex 39A


Falcon 9
Success
1 day, 6 hours ago
Starlink Group 5-10
Space Launch Complex 40 - Cape Canaveral, FL, USA

A batch of 56 satellites for the Starlink mega-constellation - SpaceX's project for space-based Internet communication system.


Soyuz 2-1v
Success
1 day, 6 hours ago
Kosmos 2568 (EO MKA-4)
43/4 (43R) - Plesetsk Cosmodrome, Russian Federation

Note: Payload identity uncertain. Russian reconnaissance satellite of unknown purposes, possibly in the same series as Kosmos 2551, 2555 and 2560.


Shavit-2
Success
2 days, 3 hours ago
Ofek-13
Unknown Pad - Palmachim Airbase, State of Israel

Ofek is a series of Israeli reconnaissance satellites. Ofek-13 is an Israeli SAR (Synthetic Aperture Radar) reconnaissance satellite that combines hi…


LVM-3 (GSLV Mk III)
Success
4 days, 22 hours ago
OneWeb 18
Satish Dhawan Space Centre Second Launch Pad - Sriharikota, Republic of India

A batch of 36 satellites for the OneWeb satellite constellation, which is intended to provide global Internet broadband service for individual consum…


Falcon 9
Success
6 days, 10 hours ago
Starlink Group 5-5
Space Launch Complex 40 - Cape Canaveral, FL, USA

A batch of 56 satellites for the Starlink mega-constellation - SpaceX's project for space-based Internet communication system.


Electron
Success
6 days, 17 hours ago
The Beat Goes On
Rocket Lab Launch Complex 1B - Onenui Station, Mahia Peninsula, New Zealand

Payload consists of 2 second generation Earth-imaging satellites for BlackSky. They are part of a constellation of 60 Low Earth Orbit Earth imagin…


Soyuz 2.1a
Success
1 week ago
Kosmos 2567 (Bars-M No. 4)
43/3 (43L) - Plesetsk Cosmodrome, Russian Federation

Note: Payload identity uncertain. Bars-M is the second incarnation of the Bars project, which was started in the mid 1990ies to develop a success…


Terran 1
Failure
1 week ago
Good Luck, Have Fun (Maiden Flight)
Launch Complex 16 - Cape Canaveral, FL, USA

Maiden launch of the Terran 1 rocket developed by Relativity Space.


Kuaizhou
Success
1 week, 1 day ago
Tianmu-1 03-06
Unknown Pad - Jiuquan, People's Republic of China

Small meteorology research satellites using GNSS radio occultation by CASIC subsidiary Xiyong Microelectronics Park. 01 & 02 were launched on Gala…


Falcon 9
Success
1 week, 6 days ago
SES-18 & SES-19
Space Launch Complex 40 - Cape Canaveral, FL, USA

SES-18 & SES-19 are two communications satellites built by Northrop Grumman.