Mission Insignia | |
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Mission Statistics | |
Mission: | STS-7 |
Shuttle: | Challenger |
Launch Pad: | 39-A |
Launch: | June 18, 1983 7:33:00 a.m. EDT |
Landing: | June 24, 1983 6:56:59 a.m. PDT |
Duration: | Six days, two hours, 23 minutes, 59 seconds. |
Orbit Altitude: | 160-170 nautical miles |
Orbit Inclination: | 28.5 degrees |
Miles Traveled: | 2,530,567 miles |
Crew photo | |
STS-7 was a space shuttle mission by NASA using the Space Shuttle Challenger, launched June 18, 1983. This was the seventh space shuttle mission, and was the second mission for the Space Shuttle Challenger.
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STS-7 was Challenger's first on-time liftoff. It also was the first American female astronaut (Sally Ride). With 5 people, STS-7 was also the largest crew to fly into space in a single spacecraft.
Two communications satellites were launched during this mission. The mission also carried the first Shuttle Pallet Satellite (SPAS-l) built by Messerschmitt-Bolkow-Blohm, a West German aerospace firm. SPAS-1 was unique because it was launched free of the payload bay, flew alongside Challenger for several hours, then was grabbed by the RMS and brought back into the payload bay.
This mission also carried seven GAS[?] canisters which contained several experiments, as well as the OSTA-2 payload, a joint U.S.-West German scientific pallet payload. Also, the orbiter's Ku-band[?] antenna was able to relay data through the Tracking and Data Relay Satellite to a ground terminal for the first time.
The crew orbited the Earth 97 times.
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