NEXT SPACEFLIGHT

Status

Success

STS-7

Launch Time
Sat Jun 18, 1983 11:33 UTC

The first US woman in space, Sally Ride, and the first deployment and retrieval of a Shuttle Pallet Satellite.

Rocket

Space Shuttle Challenger
NASA
Status: Retired
Price: $450.0 million
Liftoff Thrust: 30,250 kN
Payload to LEO: 27,500 kg
Payload to GTO: 3,810 kg
Stages: 2
Strap-ons: 2
Rocket Height: 56.1 m

Vehicles

Edwards Runway 15

OV-099

Flight #2
75 day turnaround

Mission Details

STS-7

Two communications satellites – Anik C2 for Telesat of Canada, and Palapa B1 for Indonesia – were successfully deployed during the first two days of the mission. The mission also carried the first Shuttle Pallet Satellite, SPAS-1, which was built by the West German aerospace firm Messerschmitt-Bolkow-Blohm. SPAS-1 was unique in that it was designed to operate in the payload bay or be deployed by the Remote Manipulator System (RMS) as a free-flying satellite. It carried 10 experiments to study formation of metal alloys in microgravity, the operation of heat pipes, instruments for remote sensing observations, and a mass spectrometer to identify various gases in the payload bay.

Payloads: 1
Total Mass: 16,839.0 kg
Low Earth Orbit

Location

LC-39A, Kennedy Space Center, Florida, USA

Stats

1983

60th orbital launch attempt

Space Shuttle

7th mission
2nd mission of 1983
7th successful mission