STS-41-D

Name: Space Shuttle Discovery / OV-103 | STS-41-D
Start: 1984-08-30T12:41:00+00:00
End: 1984-08-30T13:41:00+00:00
Location: Launch Complex 39A

Space Shuttle Discovery / OV-103

Lockheed Space Operations Company

Launch Status

Success

Thu • Aug 30th, 1984
12:41 PM UTC

Crew

Henry 'Hank' Hartsfield

Status: Deceased
11/21/1933 - 7/14/2014
Nationality: American
Type: Government
First Flight: 6/27/1982
Last Flight: 10/30/1985

Henry Warren "Hank" Hartsfield Jr. was a United States Air Force officer and a USAF and NASA astronaut who logged over 480 hours in space. Hartsfield became a NASA astronaut in September 1969. Hartsfield was the pilot on STS-4, the fourth and final orbital test flight of the shuttle Columbia.

Michael Coats

Status: Retired
1/16/1946 -
Nationality: American
Type: Government
First Flight: 8/30/1984
Last Flight: 4/28/1991

Michael Lloyd Coats is a former NASA astronaut (three spaceflights), raised in Riverside, California. From December 2005 to December 2012, he served as Director of the Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas.

Judith Resnik

Status: Lost In Flight
4/5/1949 - 1/28/1986
Nationality: American
Type: Government
First Flight: 8/30/1984
Last Flight: 1/28/1986

Judith Arlene Resnik was an American electrical engineer, software engineer, biomedical engineer, pilot and NASA astronaut, who died when the Space Shuttle Challenger was destroyed during the launch of mission STS-51-L.

Recognised while still a child for her "intellectual brilliance",[1] Resnik went on to work for RCA as an engineer on NASA missile and radar projects, was a senior systems engineer for Xerox Corporation, and published research on special purpose integrated circuitry, before she was recruited by NASA to the astronaut program as a mission specialist at age 28. While training on the astronaut program, she developed software and operating procedures for NASA missions.[2] She was also a pilot and made research contributions to biomedical engineering, as a research fellow of biomedical engineering at the National Institutes of Health.

Initially planning to be a concert pianist, Resnik had turned down a place at the Juilliard School of Music, choosing instead to study mathematics at Carnegie Mellon University after being one of only 16 girls in the United States to have attained 100% scores in her SAT exams at the time. She went on to graduate from Carnegie Institute of Technology in electrical engineering, before graduating with a Ph.D. magna cum laude in electrical engineering from the University of Maryland.

Resnik was the second American woman in space, and the fourth woman in space worldwide, logging 145 hours in orbit. She was also the first Jewish American in space, and the first Jewish woman of any nationality in space. The IEEE Judith Resnik Award for space engineering is named in her honor.

Charles D. Walker

Status: Retired
8/29/1948 -
Nationality: American
Type: Government
First Flight: 8/30/1984
Last Flight: 11/27/1985

Charles David "Charlie" Walker (born August 29, 1948) is an American engineer who flew on three Space Shuttle missions in 1984 and 1985 as a Payload Specialist for the McDonnell Douglas Corporation. He is the first non-government individual to fly in space.

Mike Mullane

Status: Retired
9/10/1945 -
Nationality: American
Type: Government
First Flight: 8/30/1984
Last Flight: 2/28/1990

Richard Michael "Mike" Mullane is an engineer and aircraft pilot, a retired USAF officer. and a former NASA astronaut. During his career, he flew as a mission specialist on STS-41-D, STS-27, and STS-36.

Steven Hawley

Status: Retired
12/12/1951 -
Nationality: American
Type: Government
First Flight: 8/30/1984
Last Flight: 7/23/1999

Steven Alan Hawley is a former NASA astronaut who flew on five U.S. Space Shuttle flights. He is professor of physics and astronomy and director of engineering physics at the University of Kansas.

Following an aborted attempt to launch STS-41-D where two main engines were stopped shortly after they started because the third failed to start, Hawley is reported to have broken the tense atmosphere in the shuttle cabin, saying, "I thought we'd be a lot higher at MECO!"

Mission

STS-41-D

Type: Communications

STS-41-D was the twelth flight of the Space Shuttle program and the maiden flight for Space Shuttle Discovery. It deployed three commercial 10 satellites during the six day mission along with a number of scientific experiments being conducted.