STS-51-G was the 18th flight of NASA's Space Shuttle program, and the fifth flight of Space Shuttle Discovery. The seven-day mission launched from Kennedy Space Center, Florida, on June 17, 1985, and landed at Edwards Air Force Base, California, on June 24, 1985. Sultan bin Salman Al Saud from Saudi Arabia was on board as a payload specialist; Al Saud became the first Arab, the first Muslim, and the first member of a royal family to fly into space. It was also the first Space Shuttle mission which flew without at least one astronaut from the pre-Shuttle era among its crew.

Crew

Backup 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| Brandenstein

|-

! 2

|colspan=2| Creighton

|-

! 3

| Lucid

| Fabian

|-

! 4

|colspan=2| Nagel

|-

! 5

| Fabian

| Lucid

|-

! 6

|colspan=2| Baudry

|-

! 7

|colspan=2| Al Saud

|}

Mission summary

Discovery lifted off from Launch Complex 39A, Kennedy Space Center (KSC), at 7:33 a.m. EDT on June 17, 1985. The mission's crew members included Daniel C. Brandenstein, commander; John O. Creighton, pilot; Shannon W. Lucid, Steven R. Nagel, and John M. Fabian, mission specialists; and Patrick Baudry, from France, and Prince Sultan Sultan bin Salman Al Saud, from Saudi Arabia, both payload specialists.

STS-51-G carried three communications satellites as its primary cargo. These were Arabsat-1B (Arab Satellite Communications Organization); Morelos-1 (Mexico); and Telstar-303 (AT&T Corporation); all three were Hughes-built satellites. All three successfully utilized Payload Assist Module (PAM-D) booster stages to achieve geostationary transfer orbits (GTO) after being deployed from Discovery.

Also carried was the SPARTAN-1 (Shuttle Pointed Autonomous Research Tool for AstroNomy) a deployable/retrievable carrier module, designed to be deployed from the orbiter and fly free in space before being retrieved. SPARTAN-1 included of astronomy experiments. It was deployed and operated successfully, independent of the orbiter, before being retrieved. Discovery furthermore carried an experimental materials-processing furnace, two French biomedical experiments (French Echocardiograph Experiment (FEE) and French Postural Experiment (FPE)),

{| class="wikitable"

|-

! Flight Day

! Song

! Artist/Composer

|-

| Day 2

| "Eye in the Sky (song)"

| The Alan Parsons Project

|-

| Day 3

| "Proud Mary"

| Creedence Clearwater Revival

|-

| Day 4

| "Sailing"

| Christopher Cross

|-

| Day 5

| "Jonathan Livingston Seagull"

| Neil Diamond

|-

| Day 6

| "Wedding March"

| Felix Mendelssohn

|}

<gallery>

Image:STS-51-G Arabsat 1-B deployment.jpg|Arabsat-1B deployment

Image:STS-51-G Morelos 1 deployment.jpg|Morelos-1 deployment

Image:STS-51-G Telstar 3-D deployment.jpg|Telstar-303 deployment

Image:STS-51-G Spartan 1.jpg|SPARTAN-1 after deployment

</gallery>

See also

  • List of human spaceflights
  • List of Space Shuttle missions

References

  • NASA mission summary
  • STS-51G Video Highlights