STS-5

STS-5
Mission insignia
Mission statistics
Mission name	STS-5
Space shuttle	Columbia
Launch pad	39-A
Launch date	11 November 1982, 12:19:00 UTC
Landing	16 November 1982, 14:33:26 UTC
Mission duration	5 days 02:14:26
Number of orbits	81
Orbital altitude	341 km
Orbital inclination	28.5°
Distance traveled	3,397,082 km
Crew photo
L-R Allen, Brand, Overmyer, Lenoir
Related missions
Previous mission Next mission STS-4 STS-6

STS-5 was a space shuttle mission by NASA using the Space Shuttle Columbia, launched 11 November 1982. This was the fifth space shuttle mission, and was also the fifth mission for the Space Shuttle Columbia.

Crew

Mission parameters

• Mass:
  • Orbiter Liftoff: 112,088 kg
  • Orbiter Landing: 91,841 kg
  • Payload: 14,551 kg
• Perigee: 294 km
• Apogee: 317 km
• Inclination: 28.5°
• Period: 90.5 min

Mission highlights

SBS-3 satellite with PAM-D stage inside the space shuttle

Anik C3 is deployed

STS-5, the first operational mission, also carried the largest crew up to that time—four astronauts—and the first two commercial communications satellites to be flown on the shuttle. The fifth launch of the orbiter Columbia took place at 7:19 a.m. EST, 11 November 1982. It was the second on-schedule launch.

The two communications satellites were deployed successfully and subsequently propelled into their operational geosynchronous orbits by booster rockets. Both were Hughes-built HS-376 series satellites—Satellite Business Systems-3 owned by Satellite Business Systems, and Anik C3 owned by Telesat Canada. In addition to the first commercial satellite cargo, the flight carried a West German-sponsored microgravity GAS experiment canister in the payload bay. The crew also conducted three student experiments during the flight.

A planned spacewalk, the first for the Shuttle program, by Lenoir and Allen was postponed by one day after Lenoir became ill and then had to be cancelled when the two space suits that were to be used developed problems.^[1]

Columbia landed on Runway 22, at Edwards AFB, on 16 November 1982, at 6:33 a.m. PST, having traveled 2 million miles in 81 orbits during a mission that lasted 5 days, 2 hours, 14 minutes and 26 seconds. Columbia was returned to KSC on 22 November 1982. STS-5 was the first Shuttle flight in which the crew did not wear pressure suits for the launch, reentry, and landing portions of the flight, similar in nature to Soviet Voskhod and Soyuz flights prior to the ill-fated Soyuz 11 mission.

While the shuttle was declared "operational" after STS-4, the Columbia Accident Investigation Board (CAIB) in its report on the STS-107 loss of Columbia asserted that the Shuttle should never have been considered operational and that, while not intrisically unsafe, it is in fact an experimental vehicle. The CAIB's rationale was that civilian and military aircraft that are considered operational have been tested and proven over thousands of safe flights in their final operational configurations, whereas the shuttle has only had under 200 flights, with continuous modification. NASA now operates the Space Shuttle as an experimental vehicle. (This experimental status is part of the reason tile inspection operations with the remote manipulator arm are done on the orbiter at the beginning and end of the orbital phase of each flight after STS-107.)

Mission insignia

The points of the blue star of the mission patch tell the flight's numerical designation in the Space Transportation System's mission sequence.

Wake-up calls

A tradition for NASA human spaceflights since the days of Gemini, mission crews are played a special musical track at the start of each day in space. Each track is specially chosen, often by their families, and usually has a special meaning to an individual member of the crew, or is applicable to their daily activities. ^[2]

See also

• Space science
• Space shuttle
• Space Shuttle Columbia disaster
• List of space shuttle missions
• List of human spaceflights chronologically

References

1. ^ Mission controllers release revised flight plan
2. ^ Fries, Colin (June 25, 2007). "Chronology of Wakeup Calls" (PDF). NASA. http://history.nasa.gov/wakeup%20calls.pdf. Retrieved 2007-08-13. 

External links

• STS-5 Shuttle Mission
• STS-5 Mission Chronology
• STS-5 Video Highlights