thumb|Launch of STS-51-B

STS-51-B was the 17th flight of the NASA Space Shuttle program and the seventh flight of Space Shuttle Challenger. The launch of Challenger on April 29, 1985, was delayed by 2 minutes and 18 seconds, due to a launch processing failure. Challenger was initially rolled out to the pad to launch on the STS-51-E mission. The shuttle was rolled back when a timing issue emerged with the TDRS-B satellite. When STS-51-E was canceled, Challenger was remanifested with the STS-51-B payloads. The shuttle landed successfully on May 6, 1985, after a week-long mission.

Crew

Crew seat assignments

{| class="wikitable" style="text-align:center"

! Seat

! Launch

! Landing

|rowspan=8| 150px<br />Seats 1–4 are on the flight deck.<br />Seats 5–7 are on the mid-deck.

|-

! 1

|colspan=2| Overmyer

|-

! 2

|colspan=2| Gregory

|-

! 3

|colspan=2| Lind

|-

! 4

|colspan=2| Thagard

|-

! 5

|colspan=2| Thornton

|-

! 6

|colspan=2| van&nbsp;den&nbsp;Berg

|-

! 7

|colspan=2| Wang

|}

Mission insignia

The mission insignia features the Challenger with her payload doors open, to show the onboard Spacelab 3. The orbiter rides over the American flag. The seven crewmembers are represented by the 7 stars on the patch, that indirectly refer to the Mercury Seven as a nod to their legacy. Behind the orbiter, the contours of Pegasus can be seen, as a reference to the European Space Agency (ESA). The white board surrounding it all has the appearance of a space suit helmet, with the names of the two respective teams grouped around them on a round band encircling the insignia, and the two mission specialists on an added section below. To further create some sort of contrast, the team colors are reprised for each member's name.

Mission summary

thumb|upright=1.0|left|Overmyer using a treadmill on Challenger's middeck.

Challenger lifted off from Kennedy Space Center (KSC)'s launch pad 39A at 12:02:18&nbsp;p.m. EDT on April 29, 1985. The crew members included Robert F. Overmyer, commander; Frederick D. Gregory, pilot; Don L. Lind, Norman E. Thagard and William E. Thornton, mission specialists; and Lodewijk van den Berg, of EG&G Energy Management, Inc., and Taylor G. Wang, of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), both payload specialists. Average age of 48.6 was the oldest for an American space mission. Similar to the previous Spacelab mission (STS-9), the crew was divided roughly in half to cover 12-hour shifts, with Overmyer, Lind, Thornton and Wang forming the Gold team, and Gregory, Thagard and Van den Berg as the Silver team.

STS-51-B was the second flight of the European Space Agency (ESA)'s Spacelab pressurized module, and the first with the Spacelab module in a fully operational configuration. Spacelab's capabilities for multi-disciplinary research in microgravity were successfully demonstrated. The gravity gradient attitude of the orbiter proved quite stable, allowing the delicate experiments in materials processing and fluid mechanics to proceed normally. The crew operated around the clock in two 12-hour shifts. Two squirrel monkeys and 24 rats were flown in special cages, the second time American astronauts flew live non-human mammals aboard the shuttle. The crew members in orbit were supported 24 hours a day by a temporary Payload Operations Control Center, located at the Johnson Space Center.

An experiment designed by Taylor Wang malfunctioned upon activation. Wang, feeling immense pressure, received permission to attempt a fix and was successful in repairing the experiment, though remarks made by him caused concern for the safety of the crew and the mission. The incident was covered in an Ars Technica article on 22 January 2024. There, John Fabian, mission specialist on STS-51-G, the very next shuttle flight after 51-B, was cited to explain why a lock was recently installed on the door of the side hatch: "It was installed when we got into orbit so that the door could not be opened from the inside and commit hara-kiri, kill the whole crew. That was not because of anybody we had on our flight but because of a concern about someone who had flown before 51-G." It was the problem with the O-rings on the left solid rocket motor (SRM) on this launch (SRM-16A) that prompted Roger Boisjoly to write a memo to Bob Lund about the potential for the O-rings to cause catastrophic failure.

The Simpsons season 5 episode Deep Space Homer saw NASA "improve" its ratings by sending an everyman into space. That everyman was Homer Simpson who rode in a space plane with Buzz Aldrin and Race Banyon. While in flight, Homer did the following:

  • He opened a bag of chips which he smuggled aboard and proceeded to eat them while floating around.
  • While trying to eat the bag of chips, Homer crashed into an ant experiment which unleashed ants who floated around and destroyed the navigation system.
  • The advice from singer James Taylor is to open the hatch and let the ants fly out, however Homer forgets his harness and bends the latch while trying to hold on which prevents the hatch from fully closing.
  • While fighting with a furious Race Banyon, Homer ends up using a carbon rod to secure the hatch.
  • The events with the hatch in this episode mirror the events on this Shuttle flight.

See also

  • List of human spaceflights
  • List of Space Shuttle missions

References

Further reading

  • NASA mission summary
  • STS-51B Video Highlights