STS-7

Robert Crippen

• Birthday: 09/11/1937
• Role: Commander
• Nationality: American
• First Flight: 04/12/1981
• Last Flight: 10/05/1984

Robert Laurel Crippen is an American retired naval officer and aviator, test pilot, aerospace engineer, and retired astronaut. He traveled into space four times: as Pilot of STS-1 in April 1981, the first Space Shuttle mission; and as Commander of STS-7 in June 1983, STS-41-C in April 1984, and STS-41-G in October 1984. Crippen received the Congressional Space Medal of Honor.

Frederick “Rick” Hauck

• Birthday: 04/11/1941
• Role: Pilot
• Nationality: American
• First Flight: 06/18/1983
• Last Flight: 09/29/1988

Frederick Hamilton “Rick” Hauck is a retired Captain in the United States Navy, a former fighter pilot and NASA astronaut. He piloted Space Shuttle mission STS-7 and commanded STS-51-A and STS-26.

John M. Fabian

• Birthday: 01/28/1939
• Role: Mission Specialist
• Nationality: American
• First Flight: 06/18/1983
• Last Flight: 06/17/1985

John McCreary Fabian is a former NASA astronaut, Air Force officer, and director who flew two space shuttle missions and on the development of the shuttle’s robotic arm. He later led the Air Force’s space operations.

Sally Ride

• Birthday: 05/26/1951
• Role: Mission Specialist
• Nationality: American
• First Flight: 06/18/1983
• Last Flight: 10/05/1984

Sally Kristen Ride was an American astronaut, physicist, and engineer. Born in Los Angeles, she joined NASA in 1978 and became the first American woman in space in 1983. Ride was the third woman in space overall, after USSR cosmonauts Valentina Tereshkova (1963) and Svetlana Savitskaya (1982). Ride remains the youngest American astronaut to have traveled to space, having done so at the age of 32. After flying twice on the Orbiter Challenger, she left NASA in 1987. She worked for two years at Stanford University’s Center for International Security and Arms Control, then at the University of California, San Diego as a professor of physics, primarily researching nonlinear optics and Thomson scattering. She served on the committees that investigated the Challenger and Columbia space shuttle disasters, the only person to participate in both. Ride died of pancreatic cancer on July 23, 2012.

Norman E. Thagard

• Birthday: 07/03/1943
• Role: Mission Specialist
• Nationality: American
• First Flight: 06/18/1983
• Last Flight: 03/14/1995

Norman Earl Thagard (born July 3, 1943), (Capt, USMC, Ret.), is an American scientist and former U.S. Marine Corps officer and naval aviator and NASA astronaut. He is the first American to ride to space on board a Russian vehicle, and can be considered the first American cosmonaut. He did on this on March 14, 1995, in the Soyuz TM-21 spacecraft for the Russian Mir-18 mission.

STS-7

• Type: Communications
• Orbit: Low Earth Orbit
• Launch Cost: $450,000,000

STS-7 was the second mission for the Space Shuttle Challenger. It deployed several satellites into orbit. It was the first mission scheduled to land at Kennedy Space Center however it had to divert to Edwards Air Force Base due to bad weather.
STS-7 carried Sally Ride, America’s first female astronaut.

Launch Complex 39A

Kennedy Space Center, FL, USA

Launch Complex 39A has witnessed the launch of 174 rockets, including 173 orbital launch attempts, while Kennedy Space Center, FL, USA, has been the site for 232 rocket launches.

National Aeronautics and Space Administration Space Shuttle

The Space Shuttle is a retired, partially reusable low Earth orbital spacecraft system operated from 1981 to 2011 by the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) as part of the Space Shuttle program. Its official program name was Space Transportation System (STS). Five complete Space Shuttle orbiter vehicles were built and flown on a total of 135 missions from 1981 to 2011.