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STS-61-A (also known as Spacelab D-1) was the 22nd mission of NASA's Space Shuttle program. It was a scientific Spacelab mission, funded and directed by West Germany – hence the non-NASA designation of D-1 (for Deutschland-1). STS-61-A was the ninth and last successful flight of Space Shuttle Challenger before the disaster.
With its very heavy workload, the STS-61 mission was one of the most complex in the Shuttle's history. STS-61 lasted almost 11 days, and crew members made five spacewalks (extravehicular activities (EVAs)), an all-time record; even the re-positioning of Intelsat VI on STS-49 in May 1992 required only four. The flight plan allowed for two ...
The codes were adopted from STS-41-B through STS-51-L (although the highest code used was actually STS-61-C), and the sequential numbers were used internally at NASA on all processing paperwork. After the Challenger disaster , NASA returned to using a sequential numbering system, with the number counting from the beginning of the STS program.
STS-144 Columbia: A mission to retrieve the Hubble Space Telescope and return it to Earth, for possible display in the National Air and Space Museum in Washington, D.C. [citation needed] NASA later flew the STS-125 mission to the telescope, carrying a target assembly to allow for a safe de-orbit and atmospheric breakup over the Pacific Ocean.
The mission lasted a total of 6 days, 2 hours, 3 minutes, and 51 seconds. STS-61-C was the last successful Space Shuttle flight before the Challenger disaster, which occurred on January 28, 1986, only 10 days after Columbia ' s return. Accordingly, commander Gibson later called the STS-61-C mission "The End of Innocence" for the Shuttle Program ...
NASA flew a number of Space Shuttle missions in the early and mid-1980s with designations derived from STS-61. The ambiguity was the result of a NASA decision to change designation of missions starting in Fiscal Year 1984. Previously, missions were designated in the order they were flown (i.e., STS-9 indicated the ninth shuttle mission).
Within NASA, Johnson Space Center (JSC) controlled crewed spaceflight by selecting professional, full-time astronauts. The payload specialist program gave Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC)—which supervised Spacelab, including a contracted European Space Agency-chosen payload specialist—control as well, causing conflicts.
The main objective of STS-61-F was to deploy the Ulysses solar probe, which would travel to Jupiter and use it as a gravitational slingshot in order to be placed into polar orbit around the Sun. This mission would have marked the first use of the Centaur-G liquid-fueled payload booster, which would also be used on the subsequent mission to send ...