STS-62-A
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STS-62-A was a planned
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mission to deliver a reconnaissance payload (Teal Ruby) into
polar orbit A polar orbit is one in which a satellite passes above or nearly above both poles of the body being orbited (usually a planet such as the Earth, but possibly another body such as the Moon or Sun) on each revolution. It has an inclination of about ...
. It was expected to use ''Discovery''. It would have been the first crewed launch from
Vandenberg Air Force Base Vandenberg may refer to: * Vandenberg (surname), including a list of people with the name * USNS ''General Hoyt S. Vandenberg'' (T-AGM-10), transport ship in the United States Navy, sank as an artificial reef in Key West, Florida * Vandenberg Sp ...
,
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, and the first crewed mission to go into polar orbit. The mission designation, STS-62-A, meant: 6=fiscal year 1986, 2=Vandenberg (1=
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 ...
), and A=first flight in that fiscal year.


Crew


Post-''Challenger'' accident

The
destruction Destruction may refer to: Concepts * Destruktion, a term from the philosophy of Martin Heidegger * Destructive narcissism, a pathological form of narcissism * Self-destructive behaviour, a widely used phrase that ''conceptualises'' certain kin ...
of ''Challenger'' and subsequent halt of the
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 ...
led to the cancellation of the mission. Guy Gardner, Jerry Ross, and Mike Mullane were members of the second post-''Challenger'' mission STS-27 — a classified mission for the DoD — during which the Lacrosse-1 radar reconnaissance spacecraft was allegedly deployed..


References


External links


STS-62-A mission patch draft designs

Article on the Teal Ruby satellite that would have been STS-62-A's payload

National Museum of the United States Air Force page on Teal Ruby
{{All U.S. Space Shuttle Missions Cancelled Space Shuttle missions 1986 in spaceflight