1983 American crewed spaceflight
STS-7
![](//upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/5/5a/STS007-32-1702.jpg/300px-STS007-32-1702.jpg) Challenger
as photographed by the SPAS-1 satellite on June 22, 1983
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Names
| Space Transportation System
-7
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Mission type
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Operator
| NASA
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COSPAR ID
| 1983-059A
![Edit this at Wikidata](//upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/8/8a/OOjs_UI_icon_edit-ltr-progressive.svg/10px-OOjs_UI_icon_edit-ltr-progressive.svg.png) |
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SATCAT
no.
| 14132
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Mission duration
| 6
days, 2
hours, 23
minutes, 59
seconds (achieved)
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Distance travelled
| 3,570,000 km (2,220,000 mi)
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Orbits completed
| 97
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Spacecraft
| Space Shuttle
Challenger
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Launch mass
| 113,025 kg (249,177 lb)
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Landing mass
| 92,550 kg (204,040 lb)
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Payload mass
| 16,839 kg (37,124 lb)
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Crew size
| 5
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Members
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Launch date
| June 18, 1983, 11:33:00
; 40 years ago
(
June 18, 1983, 11:33:00
)
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Rocket
| Space Shuttle
Challenger
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Launch site
| Kennedy Space Center
,
LC-39A
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Contractor
| Rockwell International
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Landing date
| June 24, 1983, 13:56:59
UTC
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Landing site
| Edwards Air Force Base
,
Runway 15
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Reference system
| Geocentric orbit
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Regime
| Low Earth orbit
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Perigee altitude
| 299 km (186 mi)
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Apogee altitude
| 307 km (191 mi)
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Inclination
| 28.30°
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Period
| 90.60 minutes
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![](//upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/0/0c/STS-7_patch.svg/200px-STS-7_patch.svg.png) STS-7 mission patch
![](//upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/6/60/Sts-7-crew.jpg/300px-Sts-7-crew.jpg) Ride
,
Fabian
,
Crippen
,
Thagard
,
Hauck
|
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, 1983, and landed at
Edwards Air Force Base
on June 24, 1983. STS-7 carried
Sally Ride
, America's first
female astronaut
.
Crew
[
edit
]
Support crew
[
edit
]
Crew seat assignments
[
edit
]
Seat
[1]
|
Launch
|
Landing
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![](//upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/4/48/Space_Shuttle_seating_plan.svg/150px-Space_Shuttle_seating_plan.svg.png) Seats 1?4 are on the Flight Deck. Seats 5?7 are on the Middeck.
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S1
|
Crippen
|
Crippen
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S2
|
Hauck
|
Hauck
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S3
|
Fabian
|
Fabian
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S4
|
Ride
|
Ride
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S5
|
Thagard
|
Thagard
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Mission summary
[
edit
]
STS-7 began on June 18, 1983, with an on-time liftoff at 7:33:00 a.m.
EDT
. It was the first spaceflight of an American woman (Ride), the largest crew to fly in a single spacecraft up to that time (five people), and the first flight that included members of NASA's
Group 8 astronaut class
, which had been selected in 1978 to fly the Space Shuttle.
President Ronald Reagan
also sent his personal favorite
Jelly Belly
jelly beans
with the astronauts, making them the first jelly beans in space. The crew had already ate lunch with the president at the
White House
on June 1, the first time that a crew did so before launch rather than after.
[2]
[
page needed
]
The crew of STS-7 included Robert Crippen, commander, making his second Shuttle flight; Frederick Hauck, pilot; and Sally Ride, John M. Fabian and Norman Thagard, all mission specialists. Thagard conducted medical tests concerning
Space adaptation syndrome
, a bout of
nausea
frequently experienced by astronauts during the early phase of a space flight.
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; both were Hughes-built HS-376-series satellites. The mission also carried the first
Shuttle pallet satellite
(SPAS-1), which was built by the
West German
aerospace firm
Messerschmitt-Bolkow-Blohm
(MBB). SPAS-1 was unique in that it was designed to operate in the payload bay or be deployed by the Remote Manipulator System (
Canadarm
) 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. It was deployed by the Canadarm and flew alongside and over
Challenger
for several hours, performing various maneuvers, while a U.S.-supplied camera mounted on SPAS-1 took pictures of the orbiter. The Canadarm later grappled the pallet and returned it to the payload bay.
STS-7 also carried seven
Getaway Special
(GAS) canisters, which contained a wide variety of experiments, as well as the OSTA-2 payload, a joint U.S.-West Germany scientific pallet payload. Finally, the orbiter's
Ku-band
antenna was able to relay data through the
U.S. tracking and data relay satellite
(TDRS) to a ground terminal for the first time.
STS-7 was scheduled to make the first orbiter landing at Kennedy Space Center's then-new
Shuttle Landing Facility
(SLF). Unacceptable weather forced a change to Runway
15 at Edwards Air Force Base. The landing took place on June 24, 1983, at 06:56:59
a.m.
PDT
. The mission lasted 6
days, 2
hours, 23
minutes, and 59
seconds, and covered about 3,570,000 km (2,220,000 mi) during 97
orbits of the
Earth
.
Challenger
was returned to KSC on June 29, 1983.
Incidents
[
edit
]
External Tank serial number 6 after jettison from
Challenger
on June 18, 1983. The arrow indicates the white area on the left bipod ramp where foam had broken off.
STS-7 experienced the first known
Space Shuttle external tank
(ET) bipod ramp foam shedding event during launch. This was the root cause of the eventual loss of
Columbia
during
STS-107
almost two decades later. While
Challenger
was on-orbit, one of its windows was damaged non-critically by
space debris
.
[3]
[
failed verification
]
Mission insignia
[
edit
]
The seven white stars in the black field of the mission patch, as well as the arm extending from the orbiter in the shape of a 7, indicate the flight's numerical designation in the
Space Transportation System
's mission sequence. The five-armed symbol on the right side illustrates the four male/one female crew.
Wake-up calls
[
edit
]
NASA began a tradition of playing music to astronauts during the
Project Gemini
, and first used music to wake up a flight crew during
Apollo 15
. 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.
[4]
Gallery
[
edit
]
See also
[
edit
]
References
[
edit
]
- ^
"STS-7"
. Spacefacts
. Retrieved
February 26,
2014
.
- ^
Sherr, Lynn
(2014).
Sally Ride: America's First Woman in Space
. New York:
Simon & Schuster
.
ISBN
978-1-4767-2578-9
.
OCLC
885483468
.
- ^
"Orbital Debris Photo Gallery"
. NASA. Archived from
the original
on May 27, 2010
. Retrieved
August 12,
2010
.
This article incorporates text from this source, which is in the
public domain
.
- ^
Fries, Colin (June 25, 2007).
"Chronology of Wakeup Calls"
(PDF)
. NASA. Archived from
the original
(PDF)
on December 20, 2023
. Retrieved
August 13,
2007
.
This article incorporates text from this source, which is in the
public domain
.
- ^
"STS-7"
.
www.astronautix.com
.
- ^
Graye, Michelle.
Houston We Have a Wake-up Call
. Lulu.com.
ISBN
9781257805525
– via Google Books.
- ^
"Wake-up time aboard the space shuttle Challenger today turned... - UPI Archives"
.
UPI
.
External links
[
edit
]
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Completed
(crews)
| 1970s
| |
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1980s
|
- 1981
- 1982
- 1983
- 1984
- 1985
- 1986
- 1988
- 1989
|
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1990s
|
- 1990
- 1991
- 1992
- 1993
- 1994
- 1995
- 1996
- 1997
- 1998
- 1999
|
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2000s
|
- 2000
- 2001
- 2002
- 2003
- 2005
- 2006
- 2007
- 2008
- 2009
|
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2010s
| |
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Cancelled
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Orbiters
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- †
indicates failure missions.
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January
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February
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March
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April
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May
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June
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July
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August
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September
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October
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November
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Unknown
month
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Launches are separated by dots ( ? ), payloads by commas ( , ), multiple names for the same satellite by slashes ( / ).
Crewed flights
are underlined. Launch failures are marked with the † sign. Payloads deployed from other spacecraft are (enclosed in parentheses).
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