STS-61-F was a

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Space Shuttle The Space Shuttle is a retired, partially reusable launch system, reusable low Earth orbital spacecraft system operated from 1981 to 2011 by the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) as part of the Space Shuttle program. ...

mission planned to launch on 15 May 1986 using ''Challenger''. It was canceled after ''Challenger'' was destroyed earlier that year.

Crew

Mission objectives

The main objective of STS-61-F was to deploy the ''Ulysses'' solar probe, which would travel to

Jupiter Jupiter is the fifth planet from the Sun and the List of Solar System objects by size, largest in the Solar System. It is a gas giant with a Jupiter mass, mass more than 2.5 times that of all the other planets in the Solar System combined a ...

and use it as a

gravitational slingshot A gravity assist, gravity assist maneuver, swing-by, or generally a gravitational slingshot in orbital mechanics, is a type of spaceflight flyby which makes use of the relative movement (e.g. orbit around the Sun) and gravity of a planet o ...

in order to be placed into

polar orbit A polar orbit is one in which a satellite passes above or nearly above both poles of the body being orbited (usually a planet such as the Earth, but possibly another body such as the Moon or Sun) on each revolution. It has an inclination of abo ...

around the

Sun The Sun is the star at the centre of the Solar System. It is a massive, nearly perfect sphere of hot plasma, heated to incandescence by nuclear fusion reactions in its core, radiating the energy from its surface mainly as visible light a ...

. 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 the ''

Galileo Galileo di Vincenzo Bonaiuti de' Galilei (15 February 1564 – 8 January 1642), commonly referred to as Galileo Galilei ( , , ) or mononymously as Galileo, was an Italian astronomer, physicist and engineer, sometimes described as a poly ...

'' probe in orbit around Jupiter. Due to the use of the Centaur-G and its volatile propellants, this mission was considered to be one of the most dangerous

flights attempted, with the Chief of the Astronaut Office John W. Young referring to the two Centaur flights as the "

Death Star The Death Star is a fictional space station and superweapon featured in the ''Star Wars'' space-opera franchise. Constructed by the autocratic Galactic Empire, the Death Star is capable of obliterating entire planets, and serves to enforce ...

" flights. The flight was risky enough that Commander Hauck gave his crewmates an option to leave the crew if they considered the mission to be too unsafe. After the loss of ''Challenger'', most of the crew (without Roy D. Bridges Jr., who left NASA in 1986) would fly as the crew of the first post-''Challenger'' mission,

STS-26 STS-26 was the 26th NASA Space Shuttle mission and the seventh flight of the orbiter ''Discovery''. The mission launched from Kennedy Space Center, Florida, on September 29, 1988, and landed four days later on October 3, 1988. STS-26 was decla ...

. Bridges was replaced by

Richard O. Covey Richard Oswalt Covey (born August 1, 1946) is a retired United States Air Force officer, former NASA astronaut, and a member of the United States Astronaut Hall of Fame. Early life Born August 1, 1946, in Fayetteville, Arkansas, he considers ...

and a third Mission Specialist ( George D. "Pinky" Nelson) was added to the crew. ''Ulysses'' was eventually deployed from ''Discovery'' on STS-41, using the solid-fueled

Inertial Upper Stage The Inertial Upper Stage (IUS), originally designated the Interim Upper Stage, was a Multistage rocket, two-stage, Solid-propellant rocket, solid-fueled space launch system developed by Boeing for the United States Air Force beginning in 1976 for ...

(IUS) and

Payload Assist Module The Payload Assist Module (PAM) is a modular upper stage designed and built by McDonnell Douglas (Boeing), using Thiokol Star-series solid propellant rocket motors. The PAM was used with the Space Shuttle, Delta, and Titan launchers and carried ...

(PAM-S) instead of the Centaur-G, which had been canceled after the ''Challenger'' disaster.

References

{{All U.S. Space Shuttle Missions Cancelled Space Shuttle missions

Crew

Mission objectives

See also

References