Oct 30 1985
From The Space Library
NASA launched at noon today from KSC the Space Shuttle Challenger on mission 61-A, a planned seven-day flight carrying Spacelab D-1 (for Deutschland) and the largest Space Shuttle crew ever, the NY Times reported. The West German Aerospace Research Establishment paid NASA $65 million to have the 22nd Space Shuttle and ninth Challenger flight devoted fully to the Spacelab experiments.
Americans on board were commander Henry Hartsfield, Jr.; Air Force Lt. Col. Steven Nagel, pilot; and mission specialists Dr. Bonnie Dunbar, a biomedical engineer, Marine Corps Col. James Buchli, and Air Force Col. Guion Bluford, Jr., who had a doctorate in aerospace engineering. The two West Germans in the crew were Dr. Ernst Messerschmidt and Mr. Reinhard Furrer, both physicists. The eighth crew member, Dr. Wubbo Ockels, a physicist from the Netherlands, represented the European Space Agency (ESA), which provided several scientific instruments in the Spacelab. The Europeans had prime responsibility for conducting the experiments; Bluford and Dunbar would assist them.
Spacelab D-1, designed, built, and checked out in Europe, was flown to KSC for installation in Challenger's cargo bay. The West German space agency's center in Oberphaffenhofen, near Munich, controlled scientific operations during the flight; ground control for flying the Space Shuttle was in Houston, as usual. Spacelab D-1 carried 76 experiments on racks that lined its walls. German researchers designed most of the experiments, which were for German and other foreign universities, research institutes, and industrial enterprises as well as ESA and NASA; other experiments were from France, Spain, Italy, Britain, the Netherlands, Belgium, Switzerland, and the U.S. All experiments were intended to take advantage of the weightlessness of space to study various processes that were normally affected by gravity. The Washington Post reported that West German officials said Spacelab was a major step toward what they hoped would be a larger laboratory module attached to the permanently manned space station that NASA envisioned for the 1990s.
Most experiments were in materials processing. Along two sides of the Spacelab, the experiments were in racks containing small furnaces for heating metals andmaking alloys that were lighter and stronger than anything produced in full gravity of earth. Other materials processing experiments would study the flow of liquids in weightlessness; yet others would grow very pure and large crystals that could lead to improvements in electronic semiconductors.
In a variety of life sciences experiments, the crew would study the growth of plants (corn and lentils) under microgravity conditions. Other studies were on how embryos of frogs and insects developed in weightlessness. Crew would use tadpoles for tests on how weightlessness might affect the development of vestibular, or balance, organs in vertebrates.
ESA's vestibular sled ran down a pair of rails in Spacelab's center aisle. Experimenters would accelerate and tilt crew members riding in the chair-like device to test how the human balance system in the inner ear responded to weightlessness and a moderate gravity force, because it was thought the inner ear, which relied on gravity to function normally, might be the source of astronauts' motion sickness.
Crew would use instruments in the cargo bay outside the Spacelab for navigation tests, such as synchronization of atomic clocks in space with those on the ground, checking for any discrepancies caused by weightlessness, and precise distance measurements by radio signals between the Space Shuttle and the ground.
To accommodate the crew of eight, NASA installed an extra sleep station, bringing the total to four. Crew would conduct laboratory work in shifts around the clock.
Despite early concern over the condition of the Space Shuttle's steering jets, mission control gave the Challenger the go-ahead for orbital operations. Later the mission control flight director said a valve malfunction prevented the flow of fuel through one line to Challenger's steering jets, but NASA considered an alternate line sufficient for regular operation to maneuver Challenger.
Flight controllers also reported erratic temperature readings on one of the three fuel cells that generated electricity, but with crew supervision the affected unit was operating at full strength. (NASA Release 85-145; NASA MOR M-989-61-A [prelaunch] Oct 28/85; NY Times, Oct 31/85, B13; W Post, Oct 31/85, A30)
NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC) announced it awarded to McDonnell Douglas Technical Services Co. a 33-month $98,105,079 contract extension for continuing Spacelab integration work, bringing the total value of the Spacelab contract through June 30, 1988, to $341,496,165. Under the contract, the company would provide system integration, selected flight hardware, software, ground support equipment, and mission integration support for manifested Spacelab missions.
Spacelab, developed by NASA under an international agreement with the European Space Agency, when carried in the cargo bay of the Space Shuttle orbiter converted it into an orbiting scientific research center. MSFC was responsible for monitoring Spacelab design and development activities and for management of U.S. development of selected Spacelab components. (MSFC Release 85-53)
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