![]() The delay created the opportunity to launch the Spartan-203 retrievable satellite to observe Comet Halley nearing its closest approach to the Sun in early 1986, and managers renamed the payload Spartan-Halley. NASA decided to remove the second TDRS from a flight in March 1985 due to design issues, and following repairs, it became the primary payload for STS-51L, which for other reasons first slipped to December and then to January 1986. At the time of the announcement, the mission planned to deploy the third Tracking and Data Relay System (TDRS) Satellite and included an opportunity to refly one of the two satellites returned to Earth during the STS-51A mission in November 1984. Smith was the only spaceflight rookie while the other four had each completed one previous mission. Smith, and Mission Specialists Ellison S. 29, 1985, NASA announced the five-person crew for the STS-51L mission, consisting of Commander Francis R. Right: The logo for NASA’s Teacher in Space program. Middle: Engineers process the Spartan-Halley spacecraft before installation in Challenger ’s payload bay. Left: At NASA’s Kennedy Space Center, engineers prepare the second Tracking and Data Relay System satellite for installation in Challenger ’s payload bay. Several other lessons to describe physical phenomena in weightlessness were to be filmed for later distribution. The first, entitled “The Ultimate Field Trip,” sought to compare daily life aboard the space shuttle and on Earth, and the second, “Where We’re Going, Where We’ve Been, Why?” sought to explain the importance of conducting research in space. ![]() The Teacher in Space activities consisted of two live sessions planned for the mission’s sixth day. The STS-51L crew would deploy Spartan-Halley on the third mission day and retrieve it two days later after it completed its observations. Spartan-Halley’s observations were to contribute to integrated studies conducted by several international spacecraft. Observation of Halley’s Comet, making its return to the inner solar system in its 76-year orbit around the Sun, was the objective of the Spartan-Halley astronomy satellite, developed by NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. Designated TDRS-B, the large communications satellite relied on a two-stage solid-fuel Inertial Upper Stage (IUS) to reach its final orbital position after deployment from the space shuttle on the mission’s first day. The primary objective of the STS-51L mission was to launch the second Tracking and Data Relay System (TDRS) satellite into orbit, part of a network of satellites in geostationary Earth orbit that, once completed, allowed near-continuous communications during shuttle missions. Right: The STS-51L crew patch, with the red apple symbolizing McAuliffe’s Teacher in Space program. During the six-day mission, the seven-member crew was to deploy a large communications satellite, deploy and retrieve an astronomy payload to study Halley’s Comet, and the first teacher in space would conduct lessons for schoolchildren from orbit. The next flight, designated STS-51L, marked the 25th in the program and the 10th for space shuttle Challenger. The first mission of 1986, STS-61C, delayed from December 1985, flew between Jan. Other important missions included the launch of two planetary spacecraft with very tight launch windows, an astronomy mission to study Halley’s Comet, and the launch of the Hubble Space Telescope. The agency’s plans called for up to 15 missions, including the first flight from the West Coast launch site at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California. The year 1986 was shaping up to be the most ambitious one yet for NASA’s Space Shuttle Program.
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