STS-41-G crew
Front Row (L-R): Jon McBride, Sally Ride, Kathryn Sullivan, David Leestma
Back Row (L-R): Paul Scully-Power, Robert Crippen, Marc Garneau
On October 13, 1984, the Challenger (STS-41-G) crew woke up to OU's fight song Boomer Sooner and Rocket Man by Elton John. I haven't figured out the connection between OU and the mission. Rocket Man seems appropriate though.
They prepared for re-entry by closing the payload bay doors and fired the Orbital Maneuvering System (OMS) engines over Australia. Due to the shuttle's 57-degree inclination, their re-entry took them over the eastern United States, which was one of many firsts experienced during the mission.
Challenger touched down at 12:25pm at Kennedy Space Center. They spent 8 days, 5 hours and 23 minutes in space, traveling almost 3.3M miles and completing 133 orbits.
It was the first shuttle to:
- carry a crew of seven
- carry two women into space
- involve a woman in an EVA (Sullivan)
- carry a Canadian into space (Garneau)
- carry an Australian-born person into space (Scully-Power)
- carry an astronaut with a beard into space (Scully-Power)
- fly over the eastern US during re-entry
The crew consisted of Commander Robert Crippen, pilot Jon McBride, Kathryn Sullivan, Sally Ride, David Leestma, Paul Scully-Power, and Marc Garneau.
Commander Robert Crippen became the first American to complete two space missions in the same calendar year.
Footage of the mission appeared in The Dream is Alive, an IMAX documentary film about NASA's Space Shuttle program.
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