STS-5 was the fifth

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 ...

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 fifth flight of the Space Shuttle ''Columbia''. It launched on November 11, 1982, and landed five days later on November 16, 1982. STS-5 was the first Space Shuttle mission to deploy

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 into orbit, and the first officially "operational" Space Shuttle mission.

Crew

Support crew

Roy D. Bridges Jr. Roy Dubard Bridges Jr. (born July 19, 1943) is an American pilot, engineer, retired United States Air Force officer, test pilot, former NASA astronaut and the former director of NASA's John F. Kennedy Space Center and Langley Research Center. As ...

(entry CAPCOM) *

Michael Coats Michael Lloyd Coats (born January 16, 1946) is a former NASA astronaut (three spaceflights), raised in Riverside, California. From December 2005 to December 2012, he served as Director of the Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas. Early life an ...

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 ...

Bryan D. O'Connor Bryan Daniel O'Connor (born September 6, 1946) is a retired United States Marine Corps Colonel (United States), Colonel and former NASA astronaut. He was inducted into the United States Astronaut Hall of Fame in 2008. Personal Born September 6, ...

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 ...

* Robert L. Stewart (ascent CAPCOM)

Crew seat assignments

Mission summary

''Columbia'' launched on schedule 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 ...

(KSC) at 07:19:00a.m. EST, on November 11, 1982. The shuttle carried a crew of four – the largest spacecraft crew up to that time – and the first two commercial

s to be flown aboard a shuttle. The commercial satellites were deployed successfully and subsequently propelled into their operational

geosynchronous orbit A geosynchronous orbit (sometimes abbreviated GSO) is an Earth-centered orbit with an orbital period that matches Earth's rotation on its axis, 23 hours, 56 minutes, and 4 seconds (one sidereal day). The synchronization of rotation and orbital ...

s by

McDonnell Douglas McDonnell Douglas Corporation was a major American Aerospace manufacturer, aerospace manufacturing corporation and defense contractor, formed by the merger of McDonnell Aircraft and the Douglas Aircraft Company in 1967. Between then and its own ...

PAM-D 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 carrie ...

kick motors. The two satellites were SBS-3, owned by

Satellite Business Systems Satellite Business Systems (SBS) was a company founded by IBM, Aetna, COMSAT (and later wholly purchased by IBM and then subsequently sold to MCI), that provided private professional satellite communications through its SBS fleet of FSS geos ...

, and Anik-C3, owned by

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

; both were Hughes-built

HS-376 The Boeing 376 (sometimes referred to as the BSS-376, and previously as the HS-376) is a communications satellite bus introduced in 1978 by Hughes Space and Communications Company. It was a spin-stabilized bus, a successor to Hughes HS-333. ...

-series satellites. In addition, STS-5 carried a

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 ...

-sponsored microgravity

Getaway Special Getaway Special was a NASA program that offered interested individuals, or groups, opportunities to fly small experiments aboard the Space Shuttle. Over the 20-year history of the program, over 170 individual missions were flown. The program, whi ...

(GAS) experiment canister in the payload bay. The crew also conducted three student-designed experiments during the flight. Lenoir and Allen were to perform a spacewalk, the first of the Space Shuttle program, to test newly developed space suits. The space suits were developed as cheaper and less complicated alternatives to the Apollo versions. The test was delayed by one day due to Lenoir succumbing to motion sickness. Then a poorly functioning oxygen regulator in Lenoir's suit and a broken recirculation fan in Allen's caused them to cancel the extravehicular activity (EVA) entirely. It was the first time in the history of the space program that an EVA had been cancelled due to space suit issues. ''Columbia'' landed on Runway 22 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 November 16, 1982, at 06:33:26a.m. PST, having traveled in 81 orbits during a mission that lasted 5days, 2hours, 14minutes and 26seconds. ''Columbia'' was returned to KSC on November 22, 1982. STS-5 was the first Space Shuttle flight in which the crew did not wear pressure suits for the launch, reentry, and landing portions of the flight, similar to the

Soviet The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...

Voskhod and

Soyuz Soyuz is a transliteration of the Cyrillic text Союз (Russian language, Russian and Ukrainian language, Ukrainian, 'Union'). It can refer to any union, such as a trade union (''profsoyuz'') or the Soviet Union, Union of Soviet Socialist Republi ...

missions prior to the ill-fated

Soyuz 11 Soyuz 11 () was the only crewed mission to board the world's first space station, Salyut 1. The crew, Georgy Dobrovolsky, Vladislav Volkov, and Viktor Patsayev, arrived at the space station on 7 June 1971, and departed on 29 June 1971. The ...

mission in 1971.

Operational status

The Space Shuttle was formally declared "operational" after

STS-4 STS-4 was the fourth NASA Space Shuttle mission, and also the fourth for Space Shuttle ''Columbia''. Crewed by Ken Mattingly and Henry Hartsfield, the mission launched on June 27, 1982, and landed a week later on July 4, 1982. Due to parachut ...

. However, the Columbia Accident Investigation Board (CAIB), in its report on the loss with all crew aboard 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 ...

in 2003, asserted that the orbiter should never have been considered operational and that, while not intrinsically unsafe, it was in fact an experimental vehicle. The CAIB's rationale was that civilian and military aircraft that are considered operational must have been tested and proven over thousands of safe flights in their final operational configurations, whereas the shuttle had conducted under 200 flights, with continuous modification. NASA operated the Space Shuttle as an experimental vehicle for the remainder of the program.

Mission insignia

The five points of the blue star of the mission patch 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.

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:STS-5 Launch (18277306658).jpg, ''Columbia'' is launched from Launch Pad 39A on its fifth flight and first operational mission. Image:STS-5 Anik deploy.png, Anik-C3 being deployed. Image:STS-5 landing.png, ''Columbia'' concluding its mission with an early morning landing at Runway 22 of Edwards Air Force Base.

References

External links

STS-5 mission summary
NASA.

. NSS. {{Orbital launches in 1982 Space Shuttle missions Edwards Air Force Base Spacecraft launched in 1982 1982 in California 1982 in Florida Spacecraft which reentered in 1982 November 1982