HOME

TheInfoList



OR:

STS-51-G was the 18th flight of
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, succeedin ...
's
Space Shuttle program The Space Shuttle program was the fourth human spaceflight program carried out by the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), which accomplished routine transportation for Earth-to-orbit crew and cargo from 1981 to 2011. I ...
, and the fifth flight of Space Shuttle ''Discovery''. The seven-day mission launched from
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 196 ...
,
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 ...
, on June 17, 1985, and 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 ...
,
California California is a state in the Western United States, located along the Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the most populous U.S. state and the 3rd largest by area. It is also the m ...
, on June 24, 1985. Sultan bin Salman Al Saud from
Saudi Arabia Saudi Arabia, officially the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA), is a country in Western Asia. It covers the bulk of the Arabian Peninsula, and has a land area of about , making it the fifth-largest country in Asia, the second-largest in the Ara ...
was on board as a payload specialist; Al Saud became the first
Arab The Arabs (singular: Arab; singular ar, عَرَبِيٌّ, DIN 31635: , , plural ar, عَرَب, DIN 31635: , Arabic pronunciation: ), also known as the Arab people, are an ethnic group mainly inhabiting the Arab world in Western Asia, ...
, the first
Muslim Muslims ( ar, المسلمون, , ) are people who adhere to Islam, a monotheistic religion belonging to the Abrahamic tradition. They consider the Quran, the foundational religious text of Islam, to be the verbatim word of the God of Abrah ...
, and the first member of a
royal family A royal family is the immediate family of kings/queens, emirs/emiras, sultans/ sultanas, or raja/ rani and sometimes their extended family. The term imperial family appropriately describes the family of an emperor or empress, and the term pa ...
to fly into space. It was also the first Space Shuttle mission which flew without at least one astronaut from the pre-Shuttle era among its crew.


Crew


Backup crew


Crew seating arrangements


Mission summary

''Discovery'' lifted off from Launch Complex 39A,
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 196 ...
(KSC), at 7:33 a.m. EDT on June 17, 1985. The mission's crew members included Daniel C. Brandenstein, commander;
John O. Creighton John Oliver Creighton (born April 28, 1943), (Captain (United States O-6), Capt, United States Navy, USN, Ret.), is a former NASA astronaut who flew three Space Shuttle missions. Personal life He was born on April 28, 1943, in Orange, Texas, but ...
, pilot; Shannon W. Lucid, Steven R. Nagel, and
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 ...
, mission specialists; and Patrick Baudry, from
France France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of Overseas France, overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic, Pacific Ocean, Pac ...
, and Prince Sultan Sultan bin Salman Al Saud, from
Saudi Arabia Saudi Arabia, officially the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA), is a country in Western Asia. It covers the bulk of the Arabian Peninsula, and has a land area of about , making it the fifth-largest country in Asia, the second-largest in the Ara ...
, both payload specialists. STS-51-G carried three
communications satellite A communications satellite is an artificial satellite that relays and amplifies radio telecommunication signals via a transponder; it creates a communication channel between a source transmitter and a receiver at different locations on Earth ...
s as its primary cargo. These were
Arabsat-1B Arabsat-1B was a Saudi Arabian communications satellite which was operated by Arabsat. It was used to provide communication services to the Arab States. It was constructed by Aérospatiale, based on the Spacebus 100 satellite bus, and carried two ...
(
Arab Satellite Communications Organization The Arab Satellite Communications Organization (often abbreviated as Arabsat) is a communications satellite operator in the Arab World, headquartered in the city of Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. Arabsat was created to deliver satellite-based, public and ...
); Morelos-1 (
Mexico Mexico (Spanish language, Spanish: México), officially the United Mexican States, is a List of sovereign states, country in the southern portion of North America. It is borders of Mexico, bordered to the north by the United States; to the so ...
); and Telstar-303 (
AT&T Corporation AT&T Corporation, originally the American Telephone and Telegraph Company, is the subsidiary of AT&T Inc. that provides voice, video, data, and Internet telecommunications and professional services to businesses, consumers, and government agen ...
); all three were Hughes-built satellites. All three successfully utilized
Payload Assist Module The Payload Assist Module (PAM) is a modular upper stage designed and built by McDonnell Douglas (now Boeing), using Thiokol Star-series solid propellant rocket motors. The PAM was used with the Space Shuttle, Delta, and Titan launchers and carri ...
(PAM-D) booster stages to achieve
geostationary transfer orbit A geosynchronous transfer orbit or geostationary transfer orbit (GTO) is a type of geocentric orbit. Satellites that are destined for geosynchronous (GSO) or geostationary orbit (GEO) are (almost) always put into a GTO as an intermediate step ...
s (GTO) after being deployed from ''Discovery''. Also carried was the SPARTAN-1 (Shuttle Pointed Autonomous Research Tool for AstroNomy) a deployable/retrievable carrier module, designed to be deployed from the orbiter and fly free in space before being retrieved. SPARTAN-1 included of astronomy experiments. It was deployed and operated successfully, independent of the orbiter, before being retrieved. ''Discovery'' furthermore carried an experimental materials-processing furnace, two French biomedical experiments (French Echocardiograph Experiment (FEE) and French Postural Experiment (FPE)), and six
Getaway Special Getaway Special was a NASA program that offered interested individuals, or groups, opportunities to fly small experiments aboard the Space Shuttle. Over the 20-year history of the program, over 170 individual missions were flown. The program, whi ...
(GAS) experiments, which were all successfully performed, although the GO34 Getaway Special shut down prematurely. This mission was also the first flight test of the OEX advanced autopilot which gave the orbiter capabilities above and beyond those of the baseline system. The mission's final payload element was a High Precision Tracking Experiment (HPTE) for the
Strategic Defense Initiative The Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI), derisively nicknamed the "''Star Wars'' program", was a proposed missile defense system intended to protect the United States from attack by ballistic strategic nuclear weapons ( intercontinental ballist ...
(SDI) (nicknamed "Star Wars"); the HPTE failed to deploy properly during its first try on the mission's 37th orbit, because the orbiter was not at the correct attitude. It was successfully deployed on orbit 64. ''Discovery'' 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 ...
at 9:11:52 a.m. EDT on June 24, 1985, after a mission duration of 7 days, 1 hour, 38 minutes, and 52 seconds.


Mission Insignia

The STS-51-G insignia illustrates the advances in aviation technology in the United States within a relatively short span of the twentieth century with ''Discovery'' flying over the ''
Wright Flyer The ''Wright Flyer'' (also known as the ''Kitty Hawk'', ''Flyer'' I or the 1903 ''Flyer'') made the first sustained flight by a manned heavier-than-air powered and controlled aircraft—an airplane—on December 17, 1903. Invented and flown b ...
''. A gold-and-orange-flame eagle forms the base of the insigna. The surnames of the crewmembers for the ''Discovery''s mission appear near the center edge of the circular design, with the French and Saudi crewmembers added below, with a respective flag icon along their name. Although Baudry was the first French citizen to fly with a Space Shuttle mission into space, he was only the second Frenchman to go to space, following Jean-Loup Chrétien's earlier missions with Soyuz capsule,
Soyuz T-6 Soyuz T-6 was a human spaceflight to Earth orbit to the Salyut 7 space station in 1982. Along with two Soviet cosmonauts, the crew included a Frenchman, Jean-Loup Chrétien. The Soyuz-T spacecraft arrived at Salyut 7 following launch on 24 June ...
.


Wake-up calls

NASA began a tradition of playing music to astronauts during
Project Gemini Project Gemini () was NASA's second human spaceflight program. Conducted between projects Mercury and Apollo, Gemini started in 1961 and concluded in 1966. The Gemini spacecraft carried a two-astronaut crew. Ten Gemini crews and 16 individual ...
, and first used music to wake up a flight crew during
Apollo 15 Apollo 15 (July 26August 7, 1971) was the ninth crewed mission in the United States' Apollo program and the fourth to land on the Moon. It was the first J mission, with a longer stay on the Moon and a greater focus on science than ear ...
. Each track is specially chosen, often by the astronauts' families, and usually has a special meaning to an individual member of the crew, or is applicable to their daily activities.


Gallery

Image:STS-51-G Arabsat 1-B deployment.jpg, Arabsat-1B deployment Image:STS-51-G Morelos 1 deployment.jpg, Morelos-1 deployment Image:STS-51-G Telstar 3-D deployment.jpg, Telstar-303 deployment Image:STS-51-G Spartan 1.jpg, SPARTAN-1 after deployment


See also

*
List of human spaceflights This is a list of all human spaceflights throughout history. Beginning in 1961 with the flight of Yuri Gagarin aboard Vostok 1, human spaceflight occurs when a human crew flies a spacecraft into outer space. Human spaceflight is distinguish ...
* List of Space Shuttle missions


References


External links


NASA mission summary


{{Orbital launches in 1985 Space Shuttle missions Edwards Air Force Base 1985 in spaceflight 1985 in the United States Spacecraft launched in 1985 Spacecraft which reentered in 1985