STS-9

Name: Space Shuttle Columbia / OV-102 | STS-9
Start: 1983-11-28T16:00:00+00:00
End: 1983-11-28T17:00:00+00:00
Location: Launch Complex 39A

Space Shuttle Columbia / OV-102

Rockwell International

Launch Status

Success

Mon • Nov 28th, 1983
4:00 PM UTC

Crew

John Young

Status: Deceased
9/24/1930 - 1/5/2018
Nationality: American
Type: Government
First Flight: 3/23/1965
Last Flight: 11/28/1983

John Watts Young was an American astronaut, naval officer and aviator, test pilot, and aeronautical engineer. He became the ninth person to walk on the Moon as Commander of the Apollo 16 mission in 1972. Young enjoyed the longest career of any astronaut, becoming the first person to fly six space missions (with seven launches, counting his lunar liftoff) over the course of 42 years of active NASA service. He is the only person to have piloted, and been commander of, four different classes of spacecraft: Gemini, the Apollo Command/Service Module, the Apollo Lunar Module, and the Space Shuttle.

In 1965, Young flew on the first manned Gemini mission, and commanded another Gemini mission the next year. In 1969 during Apollo 10, he became the first person to fly solo around the Moon. He drove the Lunar Roving Vehicle on the Moon's surface during Apollo 16, and is one of only three people to have flown to the Moon twice. He also commanded two Space Shuttle flights, including its first launch in 1981, and served as Chief of the Astronaut Office from 1974 to 1987. Young retired from NASA in 2004. He died on January 5, 2018.

Brewster H. Shaw

Status: Retired
5/16/1945 -
Nationality: American
Type: Government
First Flight: 11/28/1983
Last Flight: 8/8/1989

Brewster Hopkinson Shaw Jr. is a former NASA astronaut, a retired U.S. Air Force Colonel and former executive at Boeing. Shaw was inducted into the U.S. Astronaut Hall of Fame on May 6, 2006.[1]

Shaw is a veteran of three Space Shuttle missions and has logged 533 hours of space flight. He was Pilot of Space Shuttle Columbia in November 1983, Commander of Space Shuttle Atlantis in November 1985 and Commander of Columbia in August 1989.

Following the Space Shuttle Challenger accident in 1986, he supported the Roger’s Presidential Commission[2] investigating the accident. Shaw subsequently led the Space Shuttle Orbiter return-to-flight team chartered to enhance the safety of the vehicles’ operations.

Shaw worked as a manager at NASA until 1996 when he left the agency, retired from the Air Force and went to work in the private sector as an aerospace executive.

Byron K. Lichtenberg

Status: Retired
2/19/1948 -
Nationality: American
Type: Government
First Flight: 11/28/1983
Last Flight: 3/24/1992

Byron Kurt Lichtenberg, Sc. D. (born February 19, 1948) is an American engineer and fighter pilot who flew aboard two NASA Space Shuttle missions as a Payload Specialist. In 1983, he and Ulf Merbold became the first Payload Specialists to fly on the shuttle.

Owen K. Garriott

Status: Deceased
11/22/1930 - 4/15/2019
Nationality: American
Type: Government
First Flight: 7/28/1973
Last Flight: 11/28/1983

Owen Kay Garriott is an American electrical engineer and former NASA astronaut, who spent 60 days aboard the Skylab space station in 1973 during the Skylab 3 mission, and 10 days aboard Spacelab-1 on a Space Shuttle mission in 1983.

Robert A. Parker

Status: Retired
12/14/1936 -
Nationality: American
Type: Government
First Flight: 11/28/1983
Last Flight: 12/2/1990

Robert Allan Ridley Parker is an American physicist and astronomer, former Director of the NASA Management Office at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, and a retired NASA astronaut. He was a Mission Specialist on two Space Shuttle missions, STS-9 and STS-35.

He has logged over 3,500 hours flying time in jet aircraft and 463 hours in space.

Ulf Merbold

Status: Retired
6/20/1941 -
Nationality: German
Type: Government
First Flight: 11/28/1983
Last Flight: 10/3/1994

Dr. Ulf Dietrich Merbold (born June 20, 1941) is the first West German citizen and second German native (after Sigmund Jähn) to have flown in space. He is also the first member of the European Space Agency Astronaut Corps to participate in a spaceflight mission and the first non-US citizen to reach orbit in a US spacecraft. In 1983, he and Byron Lichtenberg became the first Payload Specialists to fly on the shuttle.