STS-33 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, during which Space Shuttle ''Discovery'' deployed a payload for the

United States Department of Defense The United States Department of Defense (DoD, USDOD or DOD) is an executive branch department of the federal government charged with coordinating and supervising all agencies and functions of the government directly related to national secu ...

(DoD). It was the 32nd shuttle mission overall, the ninth flight of ''Discovery'', the fifth shuttle mission in support of the DoD, the seventh post-

Space Shuttle Challenger disaster On January 28, 1986, the broke apart 73 seconds into its flight, killing all seven crew members aboard. The spacecraft disintegrated above the Atlantic Ocean, off the coast of Cape Canaveral, Florida, at 11:39a.m. Eastern Time Zone, EST (1 ...

mission and the last Shuttle mission of the 1980s. Due to the nature of the mission, specific details remain classified. ''Discovery'' lifted off from Launch Complex 39B at

Kennedy Space Center The John F. Kennedy Space Center (KSC, originally known as the NASA Launch Operations Center), located on Merritt Island, Florida, is one of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration's (NASA) ten field centers. Since December 1968 ...

(KSC),

Florida Florida is a state located in the Southeastern region of the United States. Florida is bordered to the west by the Gulf of Mexico, to the northwest by Alabama, to the north by Georgia, to the east by the Bahamas and Atlantic Ocean, and to ...

, on November 22, 1989, at 7:23:30 p.m. EST; it landed at

Edwards Air Force Base Edwards Air Force Base (AFB) is a United States Air Force installation in California. Most of the base sits in Kern County, but its eastern end is in San Bernardino County and a southern arm is in Los Angeles County. The hub of the base is E ...

California California is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States, located along the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the List of states and territori ...

, on November 27, 1989, at 7:30:16 p.m. EST. The mission was officially designated STS-33R as the original STS-33 designator belonged to the ill-fated Challenger

STS-51-L STS-51-L was the 25th mission of the NASA Space Shuttle program and the final flight of Space Shuttle ''Challenger''. Planned as the first Teacher in Space Project flight in addition to observing Halley's Comet for six days and performing a ...

, the 25th Space Shuttle mission. Official documentation for that mission contained the designator STS-33 throughout. As

was designated STS-33, future flights with the

STS-26 STS-26 was the 26th NASA Space Shuttle mission and the seventh flight of the orbiter ''Discovery''. The mission launched from Kennedy Space Center, Florida, on September 29, 1988, and landed four days later on October 3, 1988. STS-26 was decla ...

through STS-33 designators would require the R in their documentation to avoid conflicts in tracking data from one mission to another.

Crew

Crew seating arrangements

Mission background

STS-33 was the original designation for the mission that became STS-51-L, the ''Challenger'' disaster. After ''Challenger''s destruction, NASA recycled the mission numbering system back to

, which was the 26th shuttle mission and the first to fly after the disaster.

S. David Griggs Stanley David Griggs (September 7, 1939 – June 17, 1989) was a United States Navy officer and a NASA astronaut. He is credited with conducting the first unscheduled extra-vehicular activity of the space program during Space Shuttle mission STS- ...

, a veteran of

STS-51-D STS-51-D was the 16th flight of NASA's Space Shuttle program, and the fourth flight of Space Shuttle ''Discovery''. The launch of STS-51-D from Kennedy Space Center (KSC), Florida, on April 12, 1985, was delayed by 55 minutes, after a boat st ...

, was to have been the pilot of this mission. He was killed in the crash of a vintage World War II aircraft in June 1989 while training to serve as pilot on STS-33, and is commemorated on the mission insignia with a single gold star on the blue field. He was replaced by John Blaha. Sonny Carter, a Mission Specialist on this flight, was killed in a commercial plane crash on April 5, 1991 while training to fly on

STS-42 STS-42 was a NASA Space Shuttle ''Discovery'' mission with the Spacelab module. Liftoff was originally scheduled for 8:45 EST (13:45 UTC) on January 22, 1992, but the launch was delayed due to weather constraints. ''Discovery'' successfully ...

Mission summary

STS-33 was originally scheduled to launch on November 20, 1989, but was delayed because of problems with the integrated electronics assemblies which controlled the ignition and separation of the shuttle's

solid rocket booster A solid rocket booster (SRB) is a large solid propellant motor used to provide thrust in spacecraft launches from initial launch through the first ascent. Many launch vehicles, including the Atlas V, SLS and space shuttle, have used SRBs to give ...

s (SRBs). STS-33 was the third night launch of the Space Shuttle program, and the first since shuttle flights resumed in 1988 following the ''Challenger'' disaster of 1986. During the mission, ''Discovery'' deployed a single satellite, USA-48 (1989-090B). Experts believe that this was a secret Magnum

ELINT Signals intelligence (SIGINT) is intelligence-gathering by interception of ''signals'', whether communications between people (communications intelligence—abbreviated to COMINT) or from electronic signals not directly used in communication ( ...

(ELectronic INTtelligence) satellite headed for

geosynchronous orbit A geosynchronous orbit (sometimes abbreviated GSO) is an Earth-centered orbit with an orbital period that matches Earth's rotation on its axis, 23 hours, 56 minutes, and 4 seconds (one sidereal day). The synchronization of rotation and orbital ...

, similar to that launched by

STS-51-C STS-51-C (formerly STS-10) was the 15th flight of NASA's Space Shuttle program, and the third flight of Space Shuttle ''Discovery''. It launched on January 24, 1985, and made the fourth shuttle landing at Kennedy Space Center, Florida, on Janu ...

in 1985, making this mission essentially a duplicate of that earlier mission. According to Jim Slade of

ABC News ABC News is the news division of the American broadcast network ABC. Its flagship program is the daily evening newscast ''ABC World News Tonight, ABC World News Tonight with David Muir''; other programs include Breakfast television, morning ...

, USA-48 was intended to eavesdrop on military and diplomatic communications from the

Soviet Union The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen national ...

, China, and other

communist state A communist state, also known as a Marxist–Leninist state, is a one-party state that is administered and governed by a communist party guided by Marxism–Leninism. Marxism–Leninism was the state ideology of the Soviet Union, the Comint ...

s. The satellite deployed by STS-33 was a replacement for the one launched by STS-51-C, which was running out of the maneuvering fuel required for keeping its station over the

Indian Ocean The Indian Ocean is the third-largest of the world's five oceanic divisions, covering or ~19.8% of the water on Earth's surface. It is bounded by Asia to the north, Africa to the west and Australia to the east. To the south it is bounded by th ...

. However, astronaut Gary E. Payton stated in 2009 that STS-51-C's payload is "still up there, and still operating". ''Aviation Week'' claimed that during STS-33, the shuttle initially entered an x orbit at an

inclination Orbital inclination measures the tilt of an object's orbit around a celestial body. It is expressed as the angle between a Plane of reference, reference plane and the orbital plane or Axis of rotation, axis of direction of the orbiting object ...

of 28.45° to the

equator The equator is a circle of latitude, about in circumference, that divides Earth into the Northern and Southern hemispheres. It is an imaginary line located at 0 degrees latitude, halfway between the North and South poles. The term can als ...

. It then executed three Orbital Manoeuvering System (OMS) burns, the last on its fourth orbit. The first burn was to circularize the orbit at . The satellite was deployed on the seventh orbit, and ignited its

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 at the ascending node of the eighth orbit, successfully placing it in a

geostationary transfer orbit A geosynchronous transfer orbit or geostationary transfer orbit (GTO) is a type of geocentric orbit. Satellite, Satellites that are destined for geosynchronous orbit, geosynchronous (GSO) or geostationary orbit (GEO) are (almost) always put into ...

(GTO). This was the eighth IUS launched aboard the shuttle, and the seventh successfully deployed. STS-33 suffered a cabin leak in the Waste Collection System. STS-33 was observed by the telescope of the

U.S. Air Force The United States Air Force (USAF) is the air service branch of the United States Armed Forces, and is one of the eight uniformed services of the United States. Originally created on 1 August 1907, as a part of the United States Army Sign ...

Air Force Maui Optical and Supercomputing observatory The Air Force Maui Optical and Supercomputing observatory is an Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) operating location at Haleakala Observatory on Maui, Hawaii, with a twofold mission (). First, it conducts the research and development mission ...

(AMOS) during five passes over

Hawaii Hawaii ( ; haw, Hawaii or ) is a state in the Western United States, located in the Pacific Ocean about from the U.S. mainland. It is the only U.S. state outside North America, the only state that is an archipelago, and the only stat ...

. Spectrographic and infrared images of the shuttle obtained with the Enhanced Longwave Spectral Imager (ELSI) were aimed at studying the interactions between gases released by the shuttle's primary

reaction control system A reaction control system (RCS) is a spacecraft system that uses thrusters to provide attitude control and translation. Alternatively, reaction wheels are used for attitude control. Use of diverted engine thrust to provide stable attitude contr ...

(RCS) and residual atmospheric

oxygen Oxygen is the chemical element with the symbol O and atomic number 8. It is a member of the chalcogen group in the periodic table, a highly reactive nonmetal, and an oxidizing agent that readily forms oxides with most elements as wel ...

and

nitrogen Nitrogen is the chemical element with the symbol N and atomic number 7. Nitrogen is a nonmetal and the lightest member of group 15 of the periodic table, often called the pnictogens. It is a common element in the universe, estimated at se ...

species in orbit. The landing was initially scheduled for November 26, 1989, but was postponed for a day because of strong winds at the landing site. ''Discovery'' landed at Edwards Air Force Base, California, on November 27, 1989, at 7:30:16 p.m. EST, after a mission duration of 5 days, 0 hour, 6 minutes, and 46 seconds.

References

External links