STS-61-G was a

NASA The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA ) is an independent agency of the US federal government responsible for the civil space program, aeronautics research, and space research. NASA was established in 1958, succeeding t ...

Space Shuttle 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 na ...

mission planned to launch on 20 May 1986, using ''Atlantis''. The main objective of this mission was to launch the ''

Galileo Galileo di Vincenzo Bonaiuti de' Galilei (15 February 1564 – 8 January 1642) was an Italian astronomer, physicist and engineer, sometimes described as a polymath. Commonly referred to as Galileo, his name was pronounced (, ). He was ...

'' spacecraft toward

Jupiter Jupiter is the fifth planet from the Sun and the List of Solar System objects by size, largest in the Solar System. It is a gas giant with a mass more than two and a half times that of all the other planets in the Solar System combined, but ...

using the

Centaur-G Shuttle-Centaur was a version of the Centaur (rocket stage), Centaur upper stage rocket designed to be carried aloft inside the Space Shuttle and used to launch satellites into high Earth orbits or probes into deep space. Two variants were dev ...

upper stage. It was canceled after the ''Challenger'' disaster.

Crew

Crew notes

John M. Fabian John McCreary Fabian (born January 28, 1939) is a former NASA astronaut and Air Force officer who flew two Space Shuttle missions and worked on the development of the Shuttle's robotic arm. He later led the Air Force's space operations. Personal ...

was scheduled to fly as Mission Specialist 1 on his third trip to space, but he took advice from his wife who had earlier told him that "his marriage had a two-flight limit", he soon resigned from this mission. His replacement was Norman E. Thagard. Most of the crew sans van Hoften flew on STS-30 in May 1989, with

Mary L. Cleave Mary Louise Cleave (born February 5, 1947) is an American engineer and a former NASA astronaut. She also served from 2004 to 2007 as NASA Associate Administrator for the Science Mission Directorate. Early life Cleave was born in Southampton, Ne ...

taking the place of van Hoften and the addition of rookie

Mark C. Lee Mark Charles Lee USAF Colonel, (born August 14, 1952) is a former NASA astronaut who flew on four Space Shuttle missions. He retired from the Air Force and NASA on July 1, 2001. Early life Lee was born August 14, 1952, in Viroqua, Wisconsin, a ...

. ''

'' was launched on STS-34 in October 1989, using the

Inertial Upper Stage The Inertial Upper Stage (IUS), originally designated the Interim Upper Stage, was a two-stage, solid-fueled space launch system developed by Boeing for the United States Air Force beginning in 1976 for raising payloads from low Earth orbit to h ...

(IUS) booster instead of the Centaur-G (which was canceled in 1986).

References

{{All U.S. Space Shuttle Missions Cancelled Space Shuttle missions

Crew

Crew notes

See also

References