rjnoe@ihlts.UUCP (Roger Noe) (10/02/84)
Challenger is set to lift off from Kennedy Space Center at 7:03 a.m. EDT Friday, October 5, 1984 and land there about 12:25 p.m. Saturday, October 13. This will be the shortest interval between shuttle flights, beginning just one month since Discovery touched down after mission 41-D. This is less than half the previous shortest interval, which was between missions 41-B and 41-C in February and April of this year. This mission will retain the designation 41-G even though it will be launched in fiscal year 1985, rather than 1984. Some of the other "firsts" of this mission: the first crew of seven on a shuttle the first astronaut to make four shuttle flights, Bob Crippen (commander of this mission) the first flight of a Canadian astronaut, payload specialist Marc Garneau the first demonstration of a satellite refueling technique in space The other crew members on the mission are pilot Jon McBride, mission specialist Sally Ride, making her second shuttle flight, mission specialists David Leetsma and Kathryn Sulllivan, and payload specialist Paul Scully-Power, an Australian-born oceanographer who is now an American citizen working for the Navy. Around 3:30 p.m. EDT this Friday, Ride will use the shuttle's remote manipulator system to deploy a satellite called ERBS, for Earth Radiation Budget Satellite. ERBS will study how the Earth interacts with the solar wind. Also aboard is a mapping camera to chart the globe; radar to provide high-resolution imagery of terrain around the world, and air pollution sensors. Garneau will run five Canadian experiments, including a photometer that he'll point at the sun. Scully-Power will concentrate on the oceans. On the fifth day, Sullivan and Leetsma will perform extravehicular activity to practice techniques for refueling orbiting satellites. In the three-hour spacewalk, Sullivan and Leetsma will connect a hose to two tanks, and later, hydrazine fuel will be transferred between the tanks through the hose. -- Roger Noe ihnp4!ihlts!rjnoe