Mission Parameters

Space walks

Mission Highlights

The crew members were Brewster H. Shaw, Jr., commander; Bryan D. O'Connor, pilot; Mary L. Cleave, Sherwood C. Spring and Jerry L. Ross, mission specialists; and Rodolfo Neri Vela, Mexico, and Charles Walker, McDonnell Douglas, payload specialists. were AUSSAT-2 and Morelos-B, in each case the second in its series. (See missions 51-I and 51-G.) Both were Hughes HS-376 satellites equipped with a PAM-D booster to reach geosynchronous transfer orbit. The third spacecraft was the SATCOM Ku-2, a version of the RCA 4000 series. RCA American Communications owns and operates the satellite system of which SATCOM Ku-2 is a part. It was attached to a PAM-D2 booster, a larger version of the PAM-D. This was the first flight of this booster stage on a Space Shuttle.

All three spacecraft were successfully deployed, one at a time, and their booster stages fired automatically to lift them to geosynchronous transfer orbits. Their respective owners assumed charge, and later fired the onboard kickmotors at apogee, to circularize the orbits and align them with the equator.

SATCOM Ku-2 has 16 channels and operates entirely in the Ku (14/12 GHz) range. Each channel has an output power of 45 watts and a bandwidth of 54 MHz, enough to make reception practical on a home antenna as small as three feet in diameter. This was the first of three spacecraft planned to form a complete operating system. Future planned service areas are homes that cannot receive cable television services, multi-unit residential complexes such as condominiums and apartment houses, hotels, hospitals, and schools; and a syndication system to deliver time-sensitive programming to commercial broadcast television stations.

An item of major interest was EASE/ACCESS, an experiment in assembling large structures in space. ACCESS was a 'high-rise' tower composed of many small struts and nodes. EASE was a geometric structure shaped like an inverted pyramid, composed of a few large beams and nodes. Together they demonstrated the feasibility of assembling large preformed structures in space. The IMAX camera mounted in the cargo bay filmed the activities of the astronauts engaged in the EASE/ACCESS work, as well as other scenes of interest.

Rudolfo Neri Vela accomplished a series of experiments, primarily in human physiology. Charles Walker again operated the Continuous Flow Electrophoresis System, the third flight of this larger and improved equipment to produce commercial pharmaceutical products in microgravity. An experiment in Diffusive Mixing of Organic Solutions, or DMOS, was operated successfully for the 3M Company. The object is to grow single crystals in microgravity that are larger and more pure than any that can be grown on Earth. One Getaway Special canister in the cargo bay carried an experiment by Canadian students to fabricate mirrors in microgravity with higher performance than ones made on Earth.

All the experiments on this mission were successfully accomplished, and all equipment operated within established parameters.

Three communications satellites deployed: MORE LOS-B (Mexico), AUSSAT-2 (Australia) and SATCOM KU-2 (RCA Americom). MORELOS-B and AUSSAT-2 attached to Payload Assist Module-D motors, SATCOM KU-2 to a PAM-D2 designed for heavier payloads. Two experiments conducted to test assembling erectable structures in space: Experimental Assembly of Structures in Extravehicular Activity (EASE) and Assembly Concept for Construction of Erectable Space Structure (ACCESS). Experiments required two space walks by Spring and Ross lasting five hours, 32 minutes, and six hours, 38 minutes, respectively. Middeck payloads: Continuous Flow Electrophoresis System (CFES); Diffusive Mixing of Organic Solutions (DMOS); Morelos Payload Specialist Experiments (MPSE) and Orbiter Experiments (OEX). In payload bay: Get Away Special and IMAX Cargo Bay Camera (ICBC).

External links