STS-5

Vance D. Brand

• Birthday: 05/09/1931
• Role: Commander
• Nationality: American
• First Flight: 07/15/1975
• Last Flight: 12/02/1990

Vance DeVoe Brand is an American former naval officer and aviator, aeronautical engineer, test pilot, and NASA astronaut. He served as Command Module Pilot during the first U.S.-Soviet joint spaceflight in 1975, and as Commander of three Space Shuttle missions.

His flight experience includes 9,669 flying hours, which includes 8,089 hours in jets, 391 hours in helicopters, 746 hours in spacecraft, and checkout in more than 30 types of military aircraft. Vance Brand Airport in Longmont, Colorado, is named in his honor.

Robert F. Overmyer

• Birthday: 07/14/1936
• Role: Pilot
• Nationality: American
• First Flight: 11/11/1982
• Last Flight: 04/29/1985

Robert Franklyn “Bob” Overmyer was an American test pilot, naval aviator, aeronautical engineer, physicist, United States Marine Corps officer, and USAF/NASA astronaut. He was born in Lorain, Ohio, but considered Westlake, Ohio his hometown. Overmyer was selected by the United States Air Force as an astronaut for its Manned Orbiting Laboratory in 1966. Upon cancellation of this program in 1969, he became a NASA astronaut and served support crew duties for the Skylab program and Apollo-Soyuz Test Project. In 1976, he was assigned to the Space Shuttle program, and flew as pilot on STS-5 in 1982, and as commander on STS-51-B in 1985. He was selected as a lead investigator into the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster, and retired from NASA in 1986. Ten years later, Overmyer died in Duluth, Minnesota while testing the Cirrus VK-30 composite homebuilt aircraft.

William B. Lenoir

• Birthday: 03/14/1939
• Role: Mission Specialist
• Nationality: American
• First Flight: 11/11/1982
• Last Flight: 11/11/1982

William Benjamin “Bill” Lenoir, Ph.D. was an American electrical engineer and a NASA astronaut.

Joseph P. Allen

• Birthday: 06/27/1937
• Role: Mission Specialist
• Nationality: American
• First Flight: 11/11/1982
• Last Flight: 11/08/1984

Joseph Percival “Joe” Allen IV, Ph.D. is a former NASA astronaut. He logged more than 3,000 hours flying time in jet aircraft.

Allen is married to the former Bonnie Jo Darling of Elkhart, Indiana. Their children are David Christopher, born September 1968 and Elizabeth Darling, born May 1972.

STS-5

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

STS-5 was the first operational flight of the Space Shuttle and it deployed a 10 satellite into orbit. It carried four crew members.

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.