STS-51-I

Joe Engle

• Birthday: 08/26/1932
• Role: Commander
• Nationality: American
• First Flight: 06/29/1965
• Last Flight: 08/27/1985

Joe Henry Engle is an American pilot who served in the United States Air Force, test pilot for the North American X-15 program, aeronautical engineer, and a former NASA astronaut. As of 2018, he is the last living pilot of the X-15 program.

Engle test-flew the joint NASA-Air Force X-15 rocket airplane. During the course of testing, Engle earned his USAF Astronaut Wings, a Distinguished Flying Cross and other awards. Engle was selected by NASA in 1966 for the Apollo program, and was originally scheduled to land on the Moon as Lunar Module Pilot on Apollo 17, but was bumped when later flights were cancelled, so that geologist-astronaut Harrison H. Schmitt could fly.

He subsequently became one of the first astronauts in the Space Shuttle program, having flight tested the Space Shuttle Enterprise in 1977. He was Commander of the second orbital test flight of the Space Shuttle Columbia in 1981.

Richard O. Covey

• Birthday: 08/01/1946
• Role: Pilot
• Nationality: American
• First Flight: 08/27/1985
• Last Flight: 12/02/1993

Richard Oswalt Covey is a retired United States Air Force officer and former NASA astronaut.

William Frederick Fisher

• Birthday: 04/01/1946
• Role: Mission Specialist
• Nationality: American
• First Flight: 08/27/1985
• Last Flight: 08/27/1985

William Frederick Fisher is an American physician and a former NASA astronaut. Fisher went into space in 1985 on board the Space Shuttle. He retired from NASA in 1992 and returned to the full-time practice of medicine. His time at NASA coincided with that of his former wife and fellow astronaut Anna Lee Fisher.

James van Hoften

• Birthday: 06/11/1944
• Role: Mission Specialist
• Nationality: American
• First Flight: 04/06/1984
• Last Flight: 08/27/1985

James Dougal Adrianus “Ox” van Hoften, Ph.D. is an American civil and hydraulic engineer, retired U.S. Navy officer and aviator, and a former astronaut for NASA.

John M. Lounge

• Birthday: 06/28/1946
• Role: Mission Specialist
• Nationality: American
• First Flight: 08/27/1985
• Last Flight: 12/02/1990

ohn Michael “Mike” Lounge was an American engineer, a United States Navy officer, a Vietnam War veteran, and a NASA astronaut. A veteran of three Space Shuttle flights, Lounge logged over 482 hours in space. He was a mission specialist on STS-51-I (1985) and STS-26 (1988) and was the flight engineer on STS-35 (1990).

STS-51-I

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

STS-51-I was the twentieth of the shuttle program and sixth of Space Shuttle Discovery. It deployed three 10 satellites and then repaired a malfunctioning satellite. This mission required two EVAs.

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.