STS-61-A
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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 STS-51-L disaster. STS-61-A holds the current record for the largest crew—eight people—aboard any single spacecraft for the entire period from launch to landing.
Key facts
- Spaceflight.name
- STS-61-A
- Spaceflight.names_list
- Space Transportation System-22Spacelab D-1
- Spaceflight.image
- STS-61-A crew in Spacelab D-1.jpg
- Spaceflight.image_caption
- Guion Bluford, Reinhard Furrer, and Ernst Messerschmid in Spacelab Module LM2, serving as the Spacelab D1 laboratory.
- Spaceflight.mission_type
- Microgravity research
- Spaceflight.operator
- NASA, West Germany and ESA
- Spaceflight.orbits_completed
- 112
- Spaceflight.crew_size
- 8
- Spaceflight.launch_date
- UTC (12:00pmEST)
- Spaceflight.launch_site
- Kennedy, LC-39A
- Spaceflight.launch_contractor
- Rockwell International
- Spaceflight.landing_date
- UTC (9:44:51amPST)
- Spaceflight.landing_site
- Edwards, Runway17
- Spaceflight.orbit_reference
- Geocentric orbit
- Spaceflight.orbit_regime
- Low Earth orbit
- Spaceflight.orbit_inclination
- 57.00°
- Spaceflight.orbit_period
- 91.00 minutes
- Spaceflight.apsis
- gee
via Wikipedia infobox
Wikidata facts
- Instance of
- human spaceflight
- Part of
- Space Shuttle program
- Operator
- German Aerospace Center
- Followed by
- STS-61-B
- Follows
- STS-51-J
- Duration
- 607491
- Mass
- 14451
- Orbital period
- 91.0
- Image
- STS-61A launch.jpg
- Significant event
- landing
Show 14 more facts
- Commons category
- STS-61-A
- UTC date of spacecraft launch
- 1985-10-30
- type of orbit
- low Earth orbit
- crew members
- Wubbo Ockels
- vessel
- Challenger
- location of landing
- Edwards Air Force Base
- orbits completed
- 112
- UTC date of spacecraft landing
- 1985-11-06
- Commons gallery
- STS-61-A
- orbital inclination
- 57.0
- periapsis
- 319
- apoapsis
- 331
- start point
- Kennedy Space Center Launch Complex 39A
- archives at
- Lunar and Planetary Institute
Sources (4)
via Wikidata · CC0
~8 min read
Encyclopedic overview
8 sectionsContents
- Crew
- Crew seat assignments
- Mission summary
- Records
- Mission insignia
- See also
- References
- External links
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 STS-51-L disaster. STS-61-A holds the current record for the largest crew—eight people—aboard any single spacecraft for the entire period from launch to landing.
The mission carried the NASA/European Space Agency (ESA) Spacelab module into orbit with 76 scientific experiments on board, and was declared a success. Payload operations were controlled from the German Space Operations Center in Oberpfaffenhofen, West Germany, instead of from the regular NASA control center. This was the first spaceflight to include multiple crewmembers from any single country other than the United States or Soviet Union. The crew also included the first Dutch citizen astronaut, payload specialist Wubbo Ockels.
Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “STS-61-A” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.