Challenger (STS-51-B) launched 1985

STS-51-B crew

First row (L-R): Robert Overmyer, Frederick Gregory

Back row (L-R): Don Lind, Taylor Wang, Norman Thagard, William Thornton, Lodewijk van den Berg

Mission patch

Space Shuttle Challenger, launched April 29, 1985, was the seventh flight of Challenger.  Its crew consisted of Commander Robert Overmyer, Pilot Frederick Gregory, Don Lind, Norman Thagard, William Thornton, Lodewijk van den Berg, and Taylor Wang.

It was the second flight of the European Space Agency's Spacelab.  Two squirrel monkeys and 24 rats in special cages accompanied the astronauts in space.

They returned to Earth May 6.

Robert Overmyer, Space Shuttle astronaut, born 1936

Space Shuttle astronaut Robert Overmyer, born July 14, 1936 in Lorain, Ohio, went into space twice.  He became an astronaut in 1969 and served as part of the support crews for the Apollo program, the Skylab program and the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project.

His first trip into space was aboard Columbia (STS-5) as pilot in November 1982. It was the first officially "operational" shuttle mission.

His second and final was aboard Challenger (STS-51-B) as commander April-May 1985.

Overmyer was testing a plane on March 22, 1996 near Duluth International Airport in Minnesota when his plane crashed. 

Columbia (STS-5) launched in 1982

The fifth flight of the Super Shuttle program (STS-5) and the fifth flight for Columbia launched from Kennedy Space Center on November 11, 1982.  The crew consisted of four members:

Commander Vance Brand
Pilot Robert Overmyer
Specialist 1 Joseph P. Allen
Specialist 2 William B. Lenoir

The crew deployed two commercial communications satellites and planned a space walk.  However, Lenoir got sick and two of the space suits developed problems so the EVA was cancelled.

They returned to Earth November 16.

Space Shuttle Columbia deploying a commercial communications satellite.