STS-7 was

NASA The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA ) is an independent agencies of the United States government, independent agency of the federal government of the United States, US federal government responsible for the United States ...

's seventh

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, and the second mission for the Space Shuttle ''Challenger''. During the mission, ''Challenger'' deployed several satellites into orbit. The shuttle launched from

Kennedy Space Center The John F. Kennedy Space Center (KSC, originally known as the NASA Launch Operations Center), located on Merritt Island, Florida, is one of the NASA, National Aeronautics and Space Administration's (NASA) ten NASA facilities#List of field c ...

on June 18, 1983, and landed at

Edwards Air Force Base Edwards Air Force Base (AFB) is a United States Air Force installation in California. Most of the base sits in Kern County, California, Kern County, but its eastern end is in San Bernardino County, California, San Bernardino County and a souther ...

on June 24, 1983. STS-7 carried

Sally Ride Sally Kristen Ride (May 26, 1951 – July 23, 2012) was an American astronaut and physicist. Born in Los Angeles, she joined NASA in 1978, and in 1983 became the first American woman and the third woman to fly in space, after cosmonauts V ...

, America's first female astronaut.

Crew

Support crew

* John E. Blaha * Roy D. Bridges Jr. (ascent CAPCOM) *

Guy Gardner Guy Gardner may refer to: * Guy Gardner (astronaut) (born 1948), United States Air Force officer and former astronaut * Guy Gardner (character) Guy Darrin Gardner, one of the characters known as Green Lantern, is a superhero appearing in American ...

* Terry Hart *

Jon McBride Jon Andrew McBride (August 14, 1943 – August 7, 2024) was an American United States Navy, naval officer, test pilot, astronaut and administrator for NASA. Throughout his career with the United States Navy, McBride served as an aviator, a fig ...

* Bryan D. O'Connor (entry CAPCOM)

Crew seat assignments

Mission summary

STS-7 began on June 18, 1983, with an on-time liftoff at 7:33:00 a.m. EDT. It was the first spaceflight of an American woman (Ride), the largest crew to fly in a single spacecraft up to that time (five people), and the first flight that included members of NASA's Group 8 astronaut class, which had been selected in 1978 to fly the Space Shuttle. President Ronald Reagan also sent his personal favorite Jelly Belly jelly beans with the astronauts, making them the first jelly beans in space. The crew had already eaten lunch with the president at the

White House The White House is the official residence and workplace of the president of the United States. Located at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue Northwest (Washington, D.C.), NW in Washington, D.C., it has served as the residence of every U.S. president ...

on June 1, the first time that a crew did so before launch rather than after. The crew of STS-7 included Robert Crippen, commander, making his second Shuttle flight; Frederick Hauck, pilot; and Sally Ride, John M. Fabian and Norman Thagard, all mission specialists. Thagard conducted medical tests concerning

Space adaptation syndrome Space adaptation syndrome (SAS) or space sickness is a condition experienced by as many as half of all space travelers during their adaptation to weightlessness once in orbit. It is the opposite of terrestrial motion sickness since it occurs whe ...

, a bout of

nausea Nausea is a diffuse sensation of unease and discomfort, sometimes perceived as an urge to vomit. It can be a debilitating symptom if prolonged and has been described as placing discomfort on the chest, abdomen, or back of the throat. Over 30 d ...

frequently experienced by astronauts during the early phase of a space flight. Two

communications satellite A communications satellite is an artificial satellite that relays and amplifies radio telecommunication signals via a Transponder (satellite communications), transponder; it creates a communication channel between a source transmitter and a Rad ...

s –

Anik C2 Anik may refer to: * Anik (satellite), satellites launched by Canadian telecommunications company Telesat * Anik, Iran, a village in South Khorasan Province, Iran * Anik Mountain * Anik Bissonnette, a Canadian ballet dancer * Anik Jean (born ...

for

Telesat Telesat, formerly Telesat Canada, is a Canadian satellite communications company (law), company founded on May 2, 1969. The company is headquartered in Ottawa. History Founding and privatization (1969-2005) Telesat began in 1969 as Telesat C ...

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its Provinces and territories of Canada, ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, making it the world's List of coun ...

, and

Palapa B1 Palapa is a series of communications satellites owned by Indosat, an Indonesian telecommunications company (formerly by Perumtel and then by PT Satelit Palapa Indonesia/Satelindo). The first satellite was launched in July 1976, at which time ...

for

Indonesia Indonesia, officially the Republic of Indonesia, is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania, between the Indian Ocean, Indian and Pacific Ocean, Pacific oceans. Comprising over List of islands of Indonesia, 17,000 islands, including Sumatra, ...

– were successfully deployed during the first two days of the mission; both were Hughes-built HS-376-series satellites. The mission also carried the first Shuttle pallet satellite (SPAS-1), which was built by the

West German West Germany was the common English name for the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG) from its formation on 23 May 1949 until its reunification with East Germany on 3 October 1990. It is sometimes known as the Bonn Republic after its capital c ...

aerospace firm

Messerschmitt-Bölkow-Blohm Messerschmitt-Bölkow-Blohm (MBB) was a West Germany, West German aerospace manufacturer. It was formed during the late 1960s as the result of efforts to consolidate the West German aerospace industry; aircraft manufacturer Messerschmitt AG merged ...

(MBB). SPAS-1 was unique in that it was designed to operate in the payload bay or be deployed by the Remote Manipulator System ( Canadarm) as a free-flying satellite. It carried 10 experiments to study formation of metal alloys in

microgravity Weightlessness is the complete or near-complete absence of the sensation of weight, i.e., zero apparent weight. It is also termed zero g-force, or zero-g (named after the g-force) or, incorrectly, zero gravity. Weight is a measurement of the fo ...

, the operation of heat pipes, instruments for

remote sensing Remote sensing is the acquisition of information about an physical object, object or phenomenon without making physical contact with the object, in contrast to in situ or on-site observation. The term is applied especially to acquiring inform ...

observations, and a

mass spectrometer Mass spectrometry (MS) is an analytical technique that is used to measure the mass-to-charge ratio of ions. The results are presented as a '' mass spectrum'', a plot of intensity as a function of the mass-to-charge ratio. Mass spectrometry is us ...

to identify various gases in the payload bay. It was deployed by the Canadarm and flew alongside and over ''Challenger'' for several hours, performing various maneuvers, while a U.S.-supplied camera mounted on SPAS-1 took pictures of the orbiter. The Canadarm later grappled the pallet and returned it to the payload bay. STS-7 also carried seven Getaway Special (GAS) canisters, which contained a wide variety of experiments, as well as the OSTA-2 payload, a joint U.S.-West Germany scientific pallet payload. Finally, the orbiter's Ku-band antenna was able to relay data through the U.S. tracking and data relay satellite (TDRS) to a ground terminal for the first time. STS-7 was scheduled to make the first orbiter landing at Kennedy Space Center's then-new

Shuttle Landing Facility The Shuttle Landing Facility (SLF), also known as Launch and Landing Facility (LLF) , is an airport located on Merritt Island, Florida, Merritt Island in Brevard County, Florida, Brevard County, Florida, United States. It is a part of the Kennedy ...

(SLF). Unacceptable weather forced a change to Runway15 at Edwards Air Force Base. The landing took place on June 24, 1983, at 06:56:59a.m. PDT. The mission lasted 6days, 2hours, 23minutes, and 59seconds, and covered about during 97orbits of the

Earth Earth is the third planet from the Sun and the only astronomical object known to Planetary habitability, harbor life. This is enabled by Earth being an ocean world, the only one in the Solar System sustaining liquid surface water. Almost all ...

. ''Challenger'' was returned to KSC on June 29, 1983.

Incidents

STS-7 experienced the first known

Space Shuttle external tank The Space Shuttle external tank (ET) was the component of the Space Shuttle launch vehicle that contained the liquid hydrogen fuel and liquid oxygen oxidizer. During lift-off and ascent it supplied the fuel and oxidizer under pressure to the ...

(ET) bipod ramp foam shedding event during launch. This was the root cause of the eventual loss of ''Columbia'' during

STS-107 STS-107 was the 113th flight of the Space Shuttle program, and the 28th(twenty eigth) and final flight of Space Shuttle ''Columbia''. The mission ended on the 1st of February 2003, with the Space Shuttle ''Columbia'' disaster which killed al ...

almost two decades later. While ''Challenger'' was on-orbit, one of its windows was damaged non-critically by

space debris Space debris (also known as space junk, space pollution, space waste, space trash, space garbage, or cosmic debris) are defunct human-made objects in spaceprincipally in Earth orbitwhich no longer serve a useful function. These include dere ...

Mission insignia

The seven white stars in the black field of the mission patch, as well as the arm extending from the orbiter in the shape of a 7, indicate the flight's numerical designation in the

Space Transportation System The Space Transportation System (STS), also known internally to NASA as the Integrated Program Plan (IPP), was a proposed system of reusable crewed spacecraft, space vehicles envisioned in 1969 to support extended operations beyond the Apollo ...

's mission sequence. The five-armed symbol on the right side illustrates the four male/one female crew.

Wake-up calls

NASA began a tradition of playing music to astronauts during the

Project Gemini Project Gemini () was the second United States human spaceflight program to fly. Conducted after the first American crewed space program, Project Mercury, while the Apollo program was still in early development, Gemini was conceived in 1961 and ...

, and first used music to wake up a flight crew during

Apollo 15 Apollo 15 (July 26August 7, 1971) was the ninth crewed mission in the Apollo program and the fourth Moon landing. It was the first List of Apollo missions#Alphabetical mission types, J mission, with a longer stay on the Moon and a greate ...

. Each track is specially chosen, often by the astronauts' families, and usually has a special meaning to an individual member of the crew, or is applicable to their daily activities.

Gallery

Image:Challenger launch on STS-7.jpg, The second launch of ''Challenger'' Image:STS-7 PALABA-B1 deploy.jpg, Deployment of Palapa B1 Image:STS-7 Anik C2 deployment.jpg, Deployment of Anik C2 Image:Space debris impact on Space Shuttle window.jpg, Window pit caused by impact of

Image:STS-7 SPAS-1.jpg, SPAS-1 grappled by the Canadarm

Notes

References

External links

STS-7 mission summary
NASA
STS-7 video highlights
NSS
Interview with Sally Ride and STS-7 mission footage
Texas Archive of the Moving Image {{Orbital launches in 1983 Space Shuttle missions Edwards Air Force Base 1983 in Florida 1983 in California Spacecraft launched in 1983 Spacecraft which reentered in 1983 June 1983 Sally Ride