steven@dante.helios.nd.edu (10/07/90)
Here is the Space Shuttle launch manifest from the February 1986 issue of Spaceflight. I think this will resolve everybody's questions about when which missions were scheduled. STS Date Orbiter Main Payload 51L 22 Jan. 86 Challenger Spartan-Halley, TDRS-B1 61E 6 Mar. 86 Columbia Astro-1 62A 20 Mar. 86 Discovery DoD 61F 15 May 86 Challenger Ulysses 61G 20 May 86 Atlantis Gallileo 61H 24 Jun. 86 Columbia Westar VI, Palapa B3, Skynet 4A 61M 22 Jul. 86 Challenger EOS-1, TDRS-D 61J 18 Aug. 86 Atlantis Hubble Space Telescope 61N 4 Sep. 86 Columbia DoD 61I 27 Sep. 86 Challenger Insat 1C, LDEF-1 (retrieval) 62B 29 Sep. 86 Discovery DoD 61K 27 Oct. 86 Atlantis EOM 1/2 61L 6 Nov. 86 Columbia MSL-3, GSTAR-3, SYNCOM-5 71B 6 Dec. 86 Challenger DoD As can be seen, there were only 5 days between the launches of Ulysses and Gallileo, with two previous missions between 51L and Gallileo. One of these missions (Astro-1) is still waiting to be launched. The 2 day seperation between flights 61I and 62B can be explained due to that 62B was being launched from Vandenburg and 61I from Kennedy. Westar VI, Palapa B3, Skynet 4A, Insat 1C, and GSTAR-3 are communications satellites that were shifted to expendable launch vehicles. I do not know what the EOS-1, EOM 1/2, and MSL-3 payloads are, but they do not appear on current Space Shuttle launch manifests under these names. -- Steven Pietrobon, steven@ndsun.ee.nd.edu Department of Electrical Engineering, University of Notre Dame, Indiana, USA