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39-526: NASA's Hitchhiker project began in early 1984. It was created to accommodate small attached payloads in the Space Shuttle payload bay. Hitchhikers were intended for customers whose space activity requires power, data or command services. The first Hitchhiker launched on STS-61-C on January 12, 1986. Called HHG-1, it was mounted to the side of the payload bay and carried three experiments. The second Hitchhiker launched on STS-39 on April 28, 1991. This payload

78-583: A POCC. Moreover, the TDRS-1 satellite, now fully operational, was able to relay significant amounts of data through its ground terminal to the POCC. During orbiter orientation, four hours before re-entry, one of the flight control computers crashed when the Reaction Control System (RCS) thrusters were fired. A few minutes later, a second crashed in a similar fashion, but was successfully rebooted. Young delayed

117-432: A problem in a valve in the liquid oxygen system. The countdown was recycled to T−20 minutes for a second launch attempt on the same day, but was held at T−9 minutes, and then scrubbed as the launch window expired. Another attempt was made on January 7, 1986, but was scrubbed because of bad weather at contingency landing sites at Dakar , Senegal , and Morón de la Frontera , Spain ; yet another attempt, on January 9, 1986,

156-813: A quick reaction and low cost capability for flying small payloads in the Shuttle payload bay. Along with NASA's Get Away Specials (GAS), Hitchhiker was developed and operated by the Goddard Space Flight Center Shuttle Small Payloads Project (SSPP). Unlike Hitchhikers, GAS payloads were only mounted in canisters, did not connect to orbiter electrical services and did not require significant Shuttle support. Hitchhiker experiments were housed in canisters or attached to mounting plates. The Hitchhiker canister came in two varieties—the Hitchhiker Motorized Door Canister and

195-640: A total of 6 days, 2 hours, 3 minutes, and 51 seconds. STS-61-C was the last successful Space Shuttle flight before the Challenger disaster, which occurred on January 28, 1986, only 10 days after Columbia ' s return. Accordingly, commander Gibson later called the STS-61-C mission "The End of Innocence" for the Shuttle Program. Nelson, the Florida congressman , had hoped to receive a Florida orange after landing in

234-745: The Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC) Payload Operations Control Center (POCC), which was then located at the Johnson Space Center (JSC) in Texas . Funding for Spacelab 1 was provided by the ESA. After Columbia's return from STS-5 in November 1982, it received several modifications and changes in preparation for STS-9. Most of these changes were intended to support the Spacelab module and crew, such as

273-619: The Satcom-K1 communications satellite , second in a planned series of geosynchronous satellites owned and operated by RCA Americom ; the deployment was successful. Columbia also carried a large number of small scientific experiments, including 13 Getaway Special (GAS) canisters devoted to investigations involving the effect of microgravity on materials processing, seed germination , chemical reactions , egg hatching, astronomy , atmospheric physics , and an experiment designed by Ellery Kurtz and Howard Wishnow of Vertical Horizons* to determine

312-609: The Comet Halley Active Monitoring Program (CHAMP), consisting of a 35 mm (1.4 in) camera intended to photograph Halley's Comet through the aft flight deck overhead window. This experiment proved unsuccessful because of battery problems. According to Bolden, in addition to deploying the RCA satellite, Cenker operated a classified experiment for the United States Air Force during the mission. Bolden

351-534: The GPCs. Switching the vehicle to the BFS from normal flight control can happen relatively instantaneously, and that particular GPC running the BFS could also be affected by the same failure due to the soldering defect. If such a failure occurred, switching the vehicle back to normal flight control software on multiple GPCs from a single GPC running BFS takes a lot longer, in essence leaving the vehicle without any control at all during

390-483: The Sealed Canisters. The Hitchhiker Motorized Door Canister had mechanical interfaces nearly identical to a GAS canister and could accommodate a customer payload of up to 160 pounds (72.6 kilograms). This canister allowed a payload to be exposed directly to the environment of space. The Sealed Canister, without a door, could accommodate a customer payload up to 200 pounds (90.7 kilograms). The payload in this canister

429-454: The Space Shuttle, which included two journeys to the Moon and making him the most experienced space traveler to date. Young, who also commanded Columbia on its maiden voyage STS-1 , was the first person to fly the same space vehicle into orbit more than once. STS-9 marked the only time that two pre-Shuttle era astronaut veterans (Garriott and Young) would fly on the same Space Shuttle mission. STS-9

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468-451: The addition of a tunnel connecting the Spacelab to the orbiter's airlock, and additional provisions for the mission's six crew members, such as a galley and sleeping bunks. Columbia also received the more powerful Space Shuttle Main Engines introduced with Challenger , which were rated for 104% maximum thrust; its original main engines were later refurbished for use with Atlantis , which

507-422: The change. Columbia landed on Runway 17 at Edwards Air Force Base on December 8, 1983, at 03:47:24 p.m. PST , having completed 167 orbits and travelled 4.3 million miles (6.9 million kilometres) over the course of its mission. Right before landing, two of the orbiter's three auxiliary power units (APUs) caught fire due to a hydrazine leak, but the orbiter nonetheless landed successfully. Columbia

546-538: The crew, or is applicable to their daily activities. During the same session as the official crew photo, the NASA photographer took a gag photo of the STS-61-C crew with their heads and faces obscured by their helmets and visors. STS-9 STS-9 (also referred to Spacelab 1 ) was the ninth NASA Space Shuttle mission and the sixth mission of the Space Shuttle Columbia . Launched on November 28, 1983,

585-513: The effects of the space environment on fine arts materials and original oil paintings, flying four of Kurtz's paintings into space. It also carried the Materials Science Laboratory -2 structure for experiments involving liquid bubble suspension by sound waves , melting and resolidification of metallic samples and container-less melting and solidification of electrically conductive specimens. Another small experiment carrier located in

624-592: The first Costa Rican -born astronaut, Franklin Chang-Díaz , the second African-American shuttle pilot, Charles Bolden , and the second sitting politician to fly in space, Rep. Bill Nelson (D-FL). Both Bolden and Nelson would also later go on to become Administrators of NASA . STS-61-C was the last shuttle mission before the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster , which occurred ten days after STS-61-C's landing. STS-61-C saw Columbia return to flight for

663-598: The first time since the STS-9 mission in November 1983, after having undergone major modifications over the course of 18 months by Rockwell International in California . Most notable of these modifications was the addition of the SILTS (Shuttle Infrared Leeside Temperature Sensing) pod atop Columbia's vertical stabilizer, which used an infrared camera to observe reentry heating on the shuttle's left wing and part of its fuselage. The camera

702-659: The first two non-NASA astronauts to fly on the Space Shuttle. Merbold, a citizen of West Germany , was the first foreign citizen to participate in a Space Shuttle flight. Lichtenberg was a researcher at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). Prior to STS-9, the scientist-astronaut Garriott had spent 56 days in orbit in 1973 aboard Skylab . Commanding the mission was veteran astronaut John W. Young, making his sixth and final flight over an 18-year career that saw him fly twice each in Project Gemini , Apollo , and

741-430: The flight deck, while the mission and payload specialists worked inside the Spacelab. Over the course of the mission, 72 scientific experiments were carried out, spanning the fields of atmospheric and plasma physics , astronomy , solar physics , material sciences , technology , astrobiology and Earth observations . The Spacelab effort went so well that the mission was extended an additional day to 10 days, making it

780-502: The flight's numerical designation, STS-9. STS-9 launched successfully from Kennedy Space Center at 11:00:00 a.m. EST on November 28, 1983. The shuttle's crew was divided into two teams, each working 12-hour shifts for the duration of the mission. Young, Parker and Merbold formed the Red Team, while Shaw, Garriott and Lichtenberg made up the Blue Team. Usually, Young and Shaw were assigned to

819-500: The following day. The flight was extended one more day to provide for a landing opportunity at Kennedy Space Center on January 18, 1986 – this was in order to avoid time lost in an Edwards Air Force Base landing and turnaround. However, bad weather at the KSC landing site resulted in yet another wave-off. Columbia finally landed at Edwards Air Force Base on its fifth landing attempt at 5:59:51 a.m. PST , on January 18, 1986. The mission lasted

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858-564: The landing, letting the orbiter drift. He later testified: "Had we then activated the Backup Flight Software, loss of vehicle and crew would have resulted". Post-flight analysis revealed the GPCs (General Purpose Computers) failed when the RCS thruster motion knocked a piece of solder loose and shorted out the CPU board. A GPC running BFS may or may not have the same soldering defect as the rest of

897-497: The longest-duration shuttle flight at that time. In addition, Garriott made the first ham radio transmissions by an amateur radio operator in space during the flight. This led to many further space flights incorporating amateur radio as an educational and back-up communications tool. The Spacelab 1 mission was highly successful, proving the feasibility of the concept of carrying out complex experiments in space using non-NASA persons trained as payload specialists in collaboration with

936-557: The payload bay was the Hitchhiker G-1 (HHG-1), which carried three experiments to study film particles in the orbiter environment, test a new heat transfer system and determine the effects of contamination and atomic oxygen on ultraviolet optics materials, respectively. There were also four in-cabin experiments, three of them part of the Shuttle Student Involvement Program. The shuttle carried an experiment called

975-412: The state. The personnel at Edwards greeted the crew with what Bolden described as a "basket of California oranges and grapefruits". NASA began a tradition of playing music to astronauts during the Project Gemini , and first used music to wake up a flight crew during Apollo 15 . Each track is specially chosen, often by the astronauts' families, and usually has a special meaning to an individual member of

1014-412: The ten-day mission carried the first Spacelab laboratory module into orbit. STS-9 was also the last time the original STS numbering system was used until STS-26 , which was designated in the aftermath of the 1986 Challenger disaster of STS-51-L . Under the new system, STS-9 would have been designated as STS-41-A. STS-9's originally planned successor, STS-10 , was canceled due to payload issues; it

1053-402: Was also the first Space Shuttle mission to have more than one veteran astronaut. The mission was devoted entirely to Spacelab 1, a joint NASA/ European Space Agency (ESA) program designed to demonstrate the ability to conduct advanced scientific research in space. Both the mission specialists and payload specialists worked in the Spacelab module and coordinated their efforts with scientists at

1092-529: Was called Space Test Payload (STP)-1 and consisted of five experiments mounted onto a cross-bay carrier. Between 1992 and 1995, 12 Hitchhikers were manifested to fly on the Space Shuttle. The Hitchhiker system provided real-time communications between the payload and customers in the Hitchhiker control center at Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Maryland . The system also provided crew control/display capability, if necessary. Hitchhikers were created to provide

1131-406: Was delayed because of a problem with a main engine prevalve, and on January 10, 1986, heavy rainfall in the launch area led to another scrub. After four unsuccessful launch attempts, Columbia launched successfully from Kennedy Space Center at 6:55:00 a.m. EST on January 12, 1986. There were no significant anomalies reported during the launch. The primary objective of the mission was to deploy

1170-466: Was ferried back to KSC on December 15, 1983. The leak was later discovered after it had burned itself out and caused major damage to the compartment. By this time, Discovery had been delivered just three weeks before the launch of STS-9. This allowed NASA to take Columbia out of service for an extensive renovation and upgrade program to bring it up to date with Challenger as well as Discovery and later on Atlantis , which would be delivered in 1985. As

1209-1830: Was for larger experiments or hardware requirements. Customer hardware mounted on plates may have needed additional customer-provided thermal control provisions, such as heaters or blankets. Capillary Pump Loop (CPL) Data Systems Experiment (DSE), NASA GSFC Spacecraft Kinetic Infrared Test (SKIRT)-Circular Variable Filter(CVF) / GLOS Ultraviolet Limb Imaging Experiment (UVLIMB), NRL / USAF CONCAP II-01 CONCAP III-01 LDCE-02 LDCE-03 Cryogenic Heat Pipe Experiment (CRYOHP) Shuttle Glow (GLO-1) ODERACS-1R BREMSAT ODERACS-1R BREMSAT ODERACS-1R BREMSAT ODERACS-1R BREMSAT LDCE-07 LDCE-08 LDCE-08 Cryogenic Two Phase (CRYOTP), NASA GSFC/USAF Phillips Lab Emulsion Chamber Technology (ECT), NASA MSFC Experimental Investigation of Spacecraft Glow (EISG), NASA JSC/NASA GSFC Solar Array Module Plasma Interaction Experiment (SAMPIE), NASA LeRC Spacecraft Kinetic Infrared Test (SKIRT), NASA JSC/NASA GSFC Shuttle Glow (GLO-2), U of AZ IMAX Cargo Bay Camera (ICBC) Orbital Debris Radar Calibration System-II (ODERACS-II), USAF Shuttle Glow Experiment-3 (GLO-3), U of AZ Solar Extreme Ultraviolet HH (SEH), USC Photogrammetric Appendage Structural Dynamics Experiment Payload (PASDE-01) GPS Attitude and Navigation Experiment (GANE), NASA/JSC Liquid Metal Thermal Experiment (LMTE), USAF Phillips Laboratory Passive Aerodynamically-Stabilized Magnetically-Damped Satellite (PAMS), NASA GSFC Infrared Spectral Imaging Radiometer (ISIR), NASA GSFC Critical Viscosity of Xenon (CVX-01), NASA LeRC Space Experiment Module (SEM-02), NASA GSFC Solar Constant (SOLCON-1), Royal Meteorological Institute of Belgium Two-Phase Flow (TPF), NASA GSFC COOLLAR Flight Experiment (CFE), USAF Phillips Lab STS-61-C STS-61-C

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1248-623: Was instead followed by STS-41-B . After this mission, Columbia was taken out of service for renovations and did not fly again until STS-61-C in early January 1986. STS-9 sent the first non-U.S. citizen into space on the Shuttle, Ulf Merbold , becoming the first ESA and first West German citizen to go into space. STS-9's six-member crew, the largest of any human space mission at the time, included John W. Young, commander, on his second shuttle flight; Brewster H. Shaw, pilot; Owen K. Garriott and Robert A. Parker, both mission specialists; and Byron K. Lichtenberg and Ulf Merbold, payload specialists –

1287-485: Was only told that it was a prototype for an infrared imaging camera. STS-61-C was originally scheduled to last seven days, but NASA decided to end it after four because its delays had delayed the next flight, STS-51-L . It was rescheduled to land on January 17, 1986, but this was brought forward by one day. However, the landing attempt on January 16, 1986, was canceled because of unfavorable weather at Edwards Air Force Base . Continued bad weather forced another wave-off

1326-413: Was only used for a few more missions after STS-61-C, but the pod remained on Columbia for the remainder of its operational life. Smaller and more discreet modifications were also added at various points throughout the shuttle. The bulky ejection seats, which had been disabled after STS-4 , were replaced with conventional seats and head-up displays for the commander and pilot were installed. The launch

1365-402: Was originally scheduled for December 18, 1985, but the closeout of an aft orbiter compartment was delayed, and the mission was rescheduled for the following day. However, on December 19, 1985, the countdown was stopped at T−14 seconds due to an out-of-tolerance turbine reading on the right SRB's hydraulic system. Another launch attempt, on January 6, 1986, was terminated at T−31 seconds because of

1404-605: Was rolled back to the Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB), where it was destacked and the orbiter returned to the Orbiter Processing Facility (OPF), while the suspect booster underwent repairs. The shuttle was restacked and returned to the launch pad on November 8, 1983. The mission's main payload, Spacelab 1, is depicted in the payload bay of the Columbia . The nine stars and the path of the orbiter indicate

1443-422: Was sealed in an atmosphere of nitrogen or air. Experiments attached to mounting plates could be placed on the vertical plate, a 25 inches (63.5 centimeters) by 39 inches (99.1 centimeters) mounting surface for up to 200 pounds (90.7 kilograms) of customer hardware. A larger mounting plate measured 50 inches (127 centimeters) by 60 inches (152.4 centimeters). This plate, available for use on the side-mount carrier,

1482-465: Was still under construction at the time. Also added to the shuttle were higher capacity fuel cells and a Ku-band antenna for use with the Tracking and Data Relay Satellite (TDRS). The mission's original launch date of October 29, 1983, was scrubbed due to concerns with the exhaust nozzle on the right solid rocket booster (SRB). For the first time in the history of the shuttle program, the shuttle stack

1521-406: Was the 24th mission of NASA 's Space Shuttle program , and the seventh mission of Space Shuttle Columbia . It was the first time that Columbia , the first space-rated Space Shuttle orbiter to be constructed, had flown since STS-9 . The mission launched from Florida 's Kennedy Space Center on January 12, 1986, and landed six days later on January 18, 1986. STS-61-C's seven-person crew included

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