Day 9: Challenger (STS-41-G) crew lands 1984

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.  

Day 7: STS-41-G crew conducts first woman EVA 1984

On Day 7 of Challenger's (STS-41-G) historic flight, the crew wok up to Take Me Home, Country Roads by John Denver.  David Leestma and Kathryn Sullivan donned their space suits, with help from Jon McBride, to conduct an EVA.  They maneuvered to the ORS, situated at the rear of the cargo bay.  Leestma installed a valve assembly into the simulated Landsat propulsion plumbing.  

Sullivan secured the Ku antenna as they headed back to the air lock.  One of the two motors that steered the Ku antenna failed on the first day, but Mission Control managed to devise a workaround for it so it would point at the TDRS satellite and send the stored data to NASA. The EVA lasted 3 hours and 29 minutes and Sullivan became the first American woman to conduct a spacewalk. 

Day 1: STS-41-G crew deploys the Earth Radiation Budget Satellite 1984

Less than 9 hours after launch, the crew of the space shuttle Challenger (STS-41-G) deployed the Earth Radiation Budget Satellite (ERBS).  Sally Ride, on her second mission, used the Canadarm to remove the satellite from the payload bay.  Then the ERBS fired its on-board thrusters and boosted it into orbit. It was the first spacecraft to be launched and deployed by a space shuttle mission. 

One of the solar panels on the ERSB did not extend properly so Ride shook the satellite with the Canadarm for the panel to extend fully.  Pilot Jon McBride maneuvered the shuttle away from the satellite when it was finally deployed.

The Stratospheric Aerosol and Gas Experiment (SAGE II), an instrument on board the ERSB, measured the decline in ozone over the Antarctic, and the data collected was key in the international community's decisions during the Montreal Protocol Agreement in 1987. 

Another instrument was the Earth Radiation Budget Experiment (ERBE) Scanner which studied longwave radiation, shortwave radiation, and total energy radiating from Earth. The third instrument was the ERBE non-scanner, which measured the total energy from the sun.  Both were included in the Clouds and the Earth's Radiant Energy System mission and NASA's Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission.  

The instruments were powered off in August 2005 in preparation for decommissioning.  During the decommissioning process, fuel was depleted, batteries were discharged, on-board memory was scrubbed, and the solar arrays were disconnected from the battery.  

ERSB re-entered Earth's atmosphere on January 8, 2023. 

Happy birthday, astronaut Jon McBride!

Jon Andrew McBride, born August 14, 1943, in Charleston, West Virginia, made his only spaceflight onboard the Space Shuttle Challenger (STS-41-G), which launched October 5, 1984.  This early in the space program, the mission had several milestones.  One of which it was the only flight for Jon McBride and fellow astronaut Paul D. Scully-Power, the first Aussie-born astronatu and the first pilot to travel with a beard.

It was also the first mission to have two women at the same time: Sally Ride and Kathryn Sullivan.  Kathryn would perform the first EVA by a woman.  And the first Canadian astronaut Marc Garneau was aboard.

After the mission, McBride was assigned as Commander of mission STS-61-E in March 1986, but the Challenger explosion postponed many flights after that.  Then he was scheulded to command mission STS-35 in March 1990, but chose to retire from NASA instead.