STS-51-A
Sign in to saveSTS-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 November 16, 1984.
Key facts
- Spaceflight.image_caption
- Dale A. Gardner poses in front of a camera with a "For Sale" sign in his hand, jokingly referring to the two broken satellites (Palapa B2 and Westar 6) the crew was sent out on EVA to pick up and return to Earth.
- Spaceflight.mission_type
- Communications satellites deploymentCommunications satellites retrieval
- Spaceflight.operator
- NASA
- Spaceflight.orbits_completed
- 127
- Spaceflight.crew_size
- 5
- Spaceflight.crew_EVAs
- 2
- Spaceflight.launch_date
- UTC (7:15amEST)
- Spaceflight.launch_site
- Kennedy, LC-39A
- Spaceflight.launch_contractor
- Rockwell International
- Spaceflight.landing_date
- UTC (6:59:56amEST)
- Spaceflight.landing_site
- Kennedy, SLF Runway 15
- Spaceflight.orbit_reference
- Geocentric orbit
- Spaceflight.orbit_regime
- Low Earth orbit
- Spaceflight.orbit_inclination
- 28.45°
- Spaceflight.orbit_period
- 90.40 minutes
- Spaceflight.apsis
- gee
- Spaceflight.instruments
- Diffused Mixing of Organic Solutions (DMOS)
- Spaceflight.insignia
- Sts-51-a-patch.png
via Wikipedia infobox
~7 min read
Encyclopedic overview
10 sectionsContents
- Crew
- Spacewalks
- Crew seat assignments
- Mission summary
- Mission insignia
- Wake-up calls
- Gallery
- See also
- References
- External links
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 November 16, 1984.
STS-51-A marked the first time a shuttle deployed two communications satellites, and retrieved from orbit two other communications satellites. The Canadian Anik D2 and Syncom IV-1 satellites were both successfully deployed by the crew of Discovery. Palapa B2 and Westar 6, meanwhile, had been deployed during the STS-41-B mission earlier in the year, but had been placed into improper orbits due to the malfunctioning of their kick motors; they were both safely recovered and returned to Earth during STS-51-A.
Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “STS-51-A” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.