STS-41-B

Mission Insignia


Mission Statistics
Mission:	STS 41-B
Shuttle:	Challenger
Launch Pad:	39-A
Launch:	February 3, 1984, 8:00:00 a.m. EST
Landing:	February 11, 1984, 7:15:55 a.m. EST, Kennedy Space Center
Duration:	7/23:15:55
Orbit Altitude:	189 nautical miles
Orbit Inclination:	28.5 degrees
Miles Traveled:	3,311,380
Crew Photo
Seated from left to right are Vance Brand, crew commander, and Robert "Hoot" Gibson, pilot. Both men are wearing shuttle blue flight suits. Standing from left to right are mission specialists Robert L. Stewart, Ronald McNair and Bruce McCandless. Both Stewart and McCandless are wearing extravehicular mobility units (EMU).

STS 41-B was the tenth flight of a Space Shuttle and the fourth for Challenger. The mission featured the first unteathered spacewalks and executed the first landing at Kennedy Space Center.

Table of contents

1 Crew
2 Mission Highlights
3 External links

Crew

Vance D. Brand (3), Commander

Robert L. Gibson (1), Pilot

Bruce McCandless II (1), Mission Specialist

Ronald E. McNair (1), Mission Specialist
Robert L. Stewart (1), Mission Specialist

Mission Highlights

This flight marked the first untethered space walks by McCandless and Stewart, using the manned maneuvering unit. WESTAR-VI and PALAPA-B2 satellites deployed, unsuccessfully because the Payload Assist Module-D (PAM-D) rocket motors failed, leaving them in radical low-Earth orbits. The German-built Shuttle Pallet Satellite (SPAS), first flown on STS-7, became the first satellite to be refurbished and flown again. SPAS remained in the payload bay since there was an electrical problem with the Remote Manipulator System (RMS). This flight marked the first use of the RMS manipulator foot restraint and offered astronauts an opportunity to practice procedures for the Solar Maximum satellite retrieval and repair conducted on STS-41-C. An internal failure scrubbed the Integrated Rendezvous Target (IRT) exercise. Five Get Away Special canisters flew in the cargo bay and the crew used a Cinema-360 camera to document their flight. Other payloads: Acoustic Containerless Experiment System (ACES); Monodisperse Latex Reactor (MLR); and Radiation Monitoring Equipment (RME), and Isoelectric Focusing (IEF) payload.

Astronaut Bruce McCandless exercises the Manned Maneuvering Unit. Photo courtesy NASA.

Bruce McCandless demonstrates the MMU floating in space above a clouded Earth.