STS-41-B was the tenth

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 and the fourth flight of the . It launched on 3 February 1984, and landed on 11 February 1984 after deploying two

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. C ...

s. It was also notable for including the first untethered

spacewalk Extravehicular activity (EVA) is any activity done by an astronaut in outer space outside a spacecraft. In the absence of a breathable atmosphere of Earth, Earthlike atmosphere, the astronaut is completely reliant on a space suit for environmen ...

. Following STS-9, the flight numbering system for 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. Its ...

was changed. Thus, the next flight, instead of being designated STS-10, became STS-41-B; the original successor to STS-9, STS-10, was canceled due to payload delays.

Crew

Spacewalks

;EVA 1 * Personnel: McCandless and Stewart * Date: 7 February 1984 * Duration: 5 hours, 55 minutes ;EVA 2 * Personnel: McCandless and Stewart * Date: 9 February 1984 * Duration: 6 hours, 17 minutes

Crew seating arrangements

Mission summary

''Challenger'' lifted off 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 1968 ...

at 08:00:00 a.m. EST on 3 February 1984. It was estimated that 100,000 people attended the launch. Two communications satellites were deployed about 8 hours after launch; one,

Westar 6 Westar was a fleet of geosynchronous communications satellites operating in the C band which were launched by Western Union from 1974 to 1984. There were seven Westar satellites in all, with five of them launched and operating under the Westar ...

, was for America's

Western Union The Western Union Company is an American multinational financial services company, headquartered in Denver, Colorado. Founded in 1851 as the New York and Mississippi Valley Printing Telegraph Company in Rochester, New York, the company chang ...

, and the other,

Palapa B2 Palapa is a series of Communications satellites owned by Indosat, an Indonesian telecommunications company (formerly by Perumtel and then by PT Satelit Palapa Indonesia/Satelindo). Starting with the first in July 1976, at which time Indone ...

, for

Indonesia Indonesia, officially the Republic of Indonesia, is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania between the Indian and Pacific oceans. It consists of over 17,000 islands, including Sumatra, Java, Sulawesi, and parts of Borneo and New Guine ...

; both were Hughes-built HS-376-series satellites. However, the

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 ...

s (PAM) for both satellites malfunctioned, placing them into a lower-than-planned orbit. Both satellites were retrieved successfully in November 1984 during

STS-51-A STS-51-A (formerly STS-19) was the 14th flight of NASA's Space Shuttle program, and the second flight of Space Shuttle ''Discovery''. The mission launched from Kennedy Space Center on November 8, 1984, and landed just under eight days later on ...

, which was conducted by the orbiter ''Discovery''. The STS-41-B crew included commander Vance D. Brand, making his second Shuttle flight; pilot

Robert L. Gibson Robert Lee "Hoot" Gibson (born October 30, 1946), (Capt, USN, Ret.), is a former American naval officer and aviator, test pilot, and aeronautical engineer. A retired NASA astronaut, he also served as Chief of the Astronaut Office from 1992 ...

; and mission specialists

Bruce McCandless II Bruce McCandless II (born Byron Willis McCandless; June 8, 1937 – December 21, 2017) was a United States Navy officer and aviator, electrical engineer, and NASA astronaut. In 1984, during the first of his two Space Shuttle missions, h ...

, Ronald E. McNair, and

Robert L. Stewart Robert Lee Stewart (born August 13, 1942) is a retired brigadier general of the United States Army and a former NASA astronaut. Personal Stewart was born August 13, 1942, in Washington, D.C. He graduated from Hattiesburg High School in Hattie ...

. On the fourth day of the mission, astronauts McCandless and Stewart performed the first untethered spacewalk, operating the Manned Maneuvering Unit (MMU) for the first time. McCandless ventured out from the orbiter, while Stewart tested the "work station" foot restraint at the end of the Remote Manipulator System (

Canadarm Canadarm or Canadarm1 (officially Shuttle Remote Manipulator System or SRMS, also SSRMS) is a series of robotic arms that were used on the Space Shuttle orbiters to deploy, manoeuvre, and capture payloads. After the Space Shuttle ''Columbia' ...

). On the seventh day of the mission, both astronauts performed another extravehicular activity (EVA) to practice capture procedures for the

Solar Maximum Mission The Solar Maximum Mission satellite (or SolarMax) was designed to investigate Sun, Solar phenomena, particularly solar flares. It was launched on February 14, 1980. The SMM was the first satellite based on the Multimission Modular Spacecraft bus ...

(SMM) satellite retrieval and repair operation, which was planned for the next mission, STS-41-C. STS-41-B also achieved the reflight of the

West German West Germany is the colloquial term used to indicate the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG; german: Bundesrepublik Deutschland , BRD) between its formation on 23 May 1949 and the German reunification through the accession of East Germany on 3 O ...

-sponsored SPAS-1 pallet/satellite, which had originally flown on

STS-7 STS-7 was NASA's seventh Space Shuttle mission, and the second mission for the Space Shuttle ''Challenger''. During the mission, ''Challenger'' deployed several satellites into orbit. The shuttle launched from Kennedy Space Center on June 18, ...

. This time, however, it remained in the payload bay due to an electrical problem in the RMS (Canadarm). The mission also carried five

Get Away 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) canisters, six live rats in the middeck area, a Cinema-360 camera and a continuation of the Continuous Flow Electrophoresis System and Monodisperse Latex Reactor experiments. Included in one of the GAS canisters was the first experiment designed and built by a high school team to fly in space. The experiment, on seed germination and growth in

zero gravity Weightlessness is the complete or near-complete absence of the sensation of weight. It is also termed zero gravity, zero G-force, or zero-G. Weight is a measurement of the force on an object at rest in a relatively strong gravitational fie ...

, was created and built by a team of four students from Brighton High School in

Utah Utah ( , ) is a state in the Mountain West subregion of the Western United States. Utah is a landlocked U.S. state bordered to its east by Colorado, to its northeast by Wyoming, to its north by Idaho, to its south by Arizona, and to it ...

through a partnership with

Utah State University Utah State University (USU or Utah State) is a public land-grant research university in Logan, Utah. It is accredited by the Northwest Commission on Colleges and Universities. With nearly 20,000 students living on or near campus, USU is Utah's ...

Brighton High School STS-11 Payload Decal

The 7 days, 23 hours, 15 minutes, and 55 seconds flight ended on 11 February 1984 with a successful landing at Kennedy Space Center's

Shuttle Landing Facility The Shuttle Landing Facility (SLF) also known as Launch and Landing Facility (LLF) is an airport located on Merritt Island in Brevard County, Florida, United States. It is a part of the Kennedy Space Center and was used by Space Shuttle for ...

. This marked the first landing of a spacecraft at its launch site. ''Challenger'' completed 128 orbits and traveled .

Mission insignia

Designed by artist Robert McCall, the eleven stars in the blue field symbolize the mission's original designation as STS-11. The left panel shows the deployment of a satellite, and the right panel shows an astronaut using the MMU.

Wake-up calls

NASA began a tradition of playing music to astronauts during the

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 Moon landing, land on the Moon. It was the first List of Apollo missions#Alphabetical mission types, J mission, with a ...

. 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.

After the mission

Astronaut Bruce McCandless II sued singer

Dido Dido ( ; , ), also known as Elissa ( , ), was the legendary founder and first queen of the Phoenician city-state of Carthage (located in modern Tunisia), in 814 BC. In most accounts, she was the queen of the Phoenician city-state of Tyre (t ...

in 2010 over the use of a public domain photo of him in space on this mission on her 2008 album ''

Safe Trip Home ''Safe Trip Home'' is the third studio album by Dido. It was released in the United Kingdom on 17 November 2008.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 ...

. He and his six colleagues were killed when ''Challenger'' disintegrated above the

Atlantic Ocean The Atlantic Ocean is the second-largest of the world's five oceans, with an area of about . It covers approximately 20% of Earth's surface and about 29% of its water surface area. It is known to separate the " Old World" of Africa, Europe ...

73 seconds after liftoff.

References

External links

Mission summary
an

NASA

NSS
Bruce McCandelss famous spacewalk
NASA channel on YouTube {{Orbital launches in 1984 Space Shuttle missions 1984 in spaceflight Spacecraft launched in 1984 1984 in the United States 1984 in science Spacecraft which reentered in 1984