STS-8/Challenger

During the Shuttle's first night launch (and landing), Guion Bluford Jr. becomes the first African-American in space

 

Flight Crew: Richard H. Truly (Commander)

Daniel C. Brandenstein (Pilot)

Dale A. Gardner (Mission Specialist)

Guion S. "Guy" Bluford, Jr. (Mission Specialist)

William E. "Bill" Thornton (Mission Specialist)

Shuttle Orbiter: Challenger (OV-099)

August 30, 1983

Mission Duration: 6 days 1 hour 8 minutes 43 seconds

98 Orbits

Landing: September 5, 1983-Runway 22 (Concrete), Edwards AFB, CA 

 

 

 

 

Once again, Challenger makes history. Right after taking Sally Ride into space on STS-7, the new Shuttle takes the first African-American astronaut, Mission Specialist Guion Bluford, Jr. (front row, right) into space on STS-8. Standing: Mission Specialists Dale Gardner and Bill Thornton. Seated, L-R: Pilot Daniel Brandenstein, Commander Richard Truly, and Mission Specialist Guion Bluford. Brandenstein, Gardner, and Bluford were members of the 1978 astronaut group; Bill Thornton was a member of the 1967 scientist group, known as the "XS-11." Truly, veteran of the Shuttle Approach & Landing Test Program and Pilot on STS-2, was a member of the 1969 MOL pilot-astronaut group. Dale Gardner called Clinton, IA home, and was a former Naval Flight Officer (NFO). In this capacity, he participated in the development and initial operational deployment of the F-14 Tomcat; his squadron flew top cover for the evacuation of Saigon at the end of the Vietnam War. Bill Thornton was born in Faison, NC, and was one of the few 6-ft-tall, 200-pounders in the astronaut corps. He was a former USAF Flight Surgeon. Daniel Brandenstein, from Watertown, WS, was close behind Thornton size-wise. He was a former Navy A-6 pilot who flew 192 combat missions over 2 carrier deployments during the Vietnam War. Richard Truly, of course, was on his second Shuttle mission. And for more on Guion Bluford, see below. NASA Photo. 

 

 

Guion Bluford had this photo taken when he was just a hopeful astronaut candidate back in 1978. A 6-ft tall native of Philadelphia, he had flown Air Force F-4s with the 557th TFS in Vietnam. Based at Cam Ranh Bay, he flew 144 combat missions during the war, 65 of them "up North." He went on to become a flight instructor, and then attended the Air Force's various schools of technology and leadership (he already had a degree in Aerospace Engineering from Penn State). He and wife Linda had 2 teenage sons when he was selected as a Mission Specialist with the 1978 astronaut group. He spent his spare time reading, swimming, jogging, scuba diving, and playing racquetball and handball. NASA Photo.

 

India sent their INSAT IB satellite aloft aboard STS-8. Here, the satellite is processed in Hangar AO prior to installation in Challenger's payload bay. NASA Photo.  

 

Wanna see something REALLY SCARY?....Fully-fueled and ready to go, Challenger has to sit on the pad and ride out an electrical storm in the hours before launch. NASA Photo.

 

Unique multiple-exposure photo of the Space Shuttle's first-ever night launch: STS-8, 8/30/83. NASA Photo.

 

Guion puts in a stint on the middeck treadmill, with a (plaid?!?) blood-pressure cuff  to keep track of his physiological responses, and he is also wearing a communications headset. The forward lockers to his left contain data recording units and checklist notebooks. NASA Photo.

 

 

Just because you're the Commander doesn't mean you can get out of doing the "grunt work" on the Shuttle. Each crew member pitches in to take care of the housekeeping chores on a Shuttle mission. Here, Commander Truly vacuums out the Air Revitalization System (ARS) filters on the middeck. NASA Photo.

 

Some astronauts prefer sleeping in the sleep-restraint bags; others can just float in zero-G and sleep just fine-although some people will tether themselves to something to keep them from literally "drifting off." Here, Richard Truly and Guion Bluford demonstrate this concept on Challenger's middeck. NASA Photo.

 

The Payload Flight Test Article (PFTA) is basically a large object carried into orbit in the Payload Bay and used to test the operation of the Canadian-built Remote Manipulator System (RMS) "robot arm" under higher stress loads; although objects are weightless in orbit, in order to move them, you still have to overcome their mass. That's what the PFTA was designed to simulate-a big satellite or space station section, with a lot of mass for the RMS to work against. In another experiment, the crew pointed Challenger's nose away from the sun for 14 hrs to test how well the flight-deck systems could stand up to extreme cold. There are always a few bugs with new, complex systems, but on the whole, Challenger and her systems performed very well. NASA Photo.

 

 

Commander Truly brought Challenger in for the Shuttle's first night landing 40 min after midnight on Sept. 5, at Edwards' paved Runway 22. (You can't exactly light up a lakebed that's 50% larger than Manhattan Island.) STS-8 was his second and last flight. He left the astronaut corps about a month later, although he stayed on in administrative jobs at NASA-he was one of the key figures in the rebuilding that followed the Challenger disaster-becoming the first astronaut to become the NASA Administrator. The day before he took over that job in Summer 1989, he retired from the Navy as a Vice Admiral. Daniel Brandenstein flew 3 more missions as a Shuttle Commander, the last of which was STS-49 in May of 1992-the first flight of the Shuttle Orbiter Endeavour, the replacement for the destroyed Challenger. Dale Gardner flew again on STS-51-A, during which he performed 2 spacewalks to retrieve satellites. Bill Thornton also flew 1 more time, on STS-51-B, and put his medical expertise to work designing exercise and other equipment for long-term use aboard the International Space Station. Guion Bluford flew 3 more times, the last of which was the STS-53 Department of Defense mission on Dec. 2, 1992. NASA Photo.