Discovery STS 51-G / A Royal Effort in Space

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PAO: We expect touchdown in a minute… four miles from the end of the runway, 6,300 feet altitude, sink rate 192 feet per second, airspeed 290 knots… 3000 feet altitude, 2,000 feet even…  two miles from the end of the runway… 1,000 feet altitude, sink rate is now 70 feet per second… gear down… one mile from the runway… ah, 86 feet… now gear down and locked… and we have touchdown at Mission Elapsed Time 7 days, one hour, 38 minutes and 50 seconds…  and we expect the rollout margin to be 4,500 feet and 15 percent braking… and wheel stop at 7 days, one hour, 39 minutes, 30 seconds…

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Discovery landed in a crosswind at Edwards Air Force Base at 9:12 a.m. Pacific time, burying its left wheel six inches into the soft desert runway. That landing was similar to April's shuttle landing at KSC when the brake locked. NASA associate administrator Jesse Moore said the wheel dragging may have been due to the soft, wet conditions of the desert lake bed, but he conceded that the brake may have locked up as it did during the previous Kennedy landing. Pending a new series of brake tests conducted at the B. F. Goodrich facility in Troy, Ohio, the next KSC landing is expected to occur in November. Concerning the just completed Discovery mission (51-G), Moore said, "I would have to say that this is one of the most successful missions of the shuttle program. This was particularly rewarding from the standpoint that essentially 100 percent of our objectives were accomplished and we had a number of very significant operations on board." (TODAY, Jun. 25, 1985)

Discovery's brakes worked fine when it landed at Edwards Air Force Base in California on June 24, NASA officials said; they further indicated that the shuttle was expected to return to Kennedy Space Center on June 29. "Officials reported that overall it was a very smooth mission," said Les Reinertsen, NASA spokesman. "The space shuttle main engines have been inspected and are in excellent condition. An inspection of the brakes revealed that they are in very good condition, as well as the tires. There were no brake anomalies reported for this landing." A softening of the desert runway by recent rains was the official explanation for Discovery's wheels having sunk into the runway. "Officials estimate that about 60 or 70 tiles will have to be replaced," Reinertsen said. "The areas with the most tile damage are the belly and the chine area near the main engine. The damage is believed to have occurred during ascent." (TODAY, Jun. 26,1985)

June 29: The shuttle Discovery which had arrived at KSC on the 28th was moved today from the runway to the Orbiter Processing Facility to be prepared for its August 24th flight. (TODAY, Jun. 30, 1985)

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Steve Nagel (JSC NASA Oral History Project): “They (the rest of the crew) went to France before my second flight, and I couldn’t go with them to France. So everybody but me went to France, and then to Saudi, we all went because that was in December of that year, and that was shortly after. My second flight (61-A) was in late October, early November. And December we went to Saudi Arabia. So it was quite a year. Nineteen eight-five was a benchmark year. I’ve never had a year before or since like that one. But the trip to Saudi Arabia to me, anyways, was more out of this world than going into orbit. Really, it was quite a trip.”

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And more pictures of Mission 51-G can be found at L2

http://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=13166.0


Meanwhile I am preparing the next thread - and, hi TALsite, you will love that one, because never before and never again a Shuttle came that close to paying a visit to your hometown of Zaragoza...

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bump.....

Space Shuttle STS-51-G Mission Highlights 1985 NASA; 18th Flight Post Flight Press Conference

Jeff Quitney

Published on Apr 24, 2017


"Commander: Daniel C. Brandenstein
Pilot: John O. Creighton
Mission Specialists: Shannon W. Lucid, John M. Fabian, Steven R. Nagel
Payload Specialists: Patrick Baudry (France), Prince Sultan Salman Al-Saud (Saudi Arabia)
Dates: June 17-24, 1985
Vehicle: Discovery OV-103
Payloads: MORELOS-A/PAM-D, ARABSAT-1B/PAM-D, TELSTAR/PAM-D 3-D, SPARTAN-1, ADSF, HPTE, FEE, FPE, ASE, and GAS (six experiments)
Landing site: Runway 23 dry lakebed at Edwards AFB, CA

Narrated by the Commander and crew, this program contains footage selected by the astronauts, as well as their comments on the mission. Footage includes launch, onboard crew activities, and landing."

NASA film JSC-874

STS-51-G was the eighteenth flight of NASA's Space Shuttle program, and the fifth flight of Space Shuttle Discovery. The mission launched from Kennedy Space Center, Florida, on 17 June 1985. Sultan Salman Al Saud of Saudi Arabia was on board as a payload specialist; Al Saud became the first Arab, the first Muslim, and the first member of a royal family to fly into space...

Mission summary

Discovery lifted off from Pad A, Launch Complex 39, Kennedy Space Center (KSC), at 7:33 am EDT on 17 June 1985. The mission's crew members included Daniel C. Brandenstein, commander; John O. Creighton, pilot; Shannon W. Lucid, Steven R. Nagel, and John M. Fabian, mission specialists; and Patrick Baudry, of France, and Prince Sultan Salman Al Saud, of Saudi Arabia, both payload specialists.

STS-51-G carried three communications satellites as its primary cargo. These were Arabsat 1-B (Arab Satellite Communications Organization); Morelos I (Mexico); and Telstar 3-D (AT&T). All three successfully utilized PAM-D booster stages to achieve geosynchronous transfer orbits after being deployed from Discovery.

Also carried was the Spartan 1 carrier module, designed to be deployed from the orbiter and fly free in space before being retrieved. Spartan 1 included 300 pounds (140 kg) of astronomy experiments. It was deployed and operated successfully, independent of the orbiter, before being retrieved. Discovery furthermore carried an experimental materials-processing furnace, several French biomedical experiments, and six Getaway Special experiments, which were all successfully performed, although the GO34 Getaway Special shut down prematurely.

The mission's final payload element was a High Precision Tracking Experiment (HPTE) for the Strategic Defense Initiative (nicknamed "Star Wars"); the HTPE failed to deploy properly during its first try on the mission's 37th orbit, because the orbiter was not at the correct attitude. It was successfully deployed on orbit 64.

Discovery landed at Edwards Air Force Base at 9:12 am EDT on 24 June 1985, after a mission duration of 7 days, one hour, 38 minutes and 52 seconds...

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Public domain film from the US National Archives, slightly cropped to remove uneven edges, with the aspect ratio corrected, and one-pass brightness-contrast-color correction & mild video noise reduction applied.
The soundtrack was also processed with volume normalization, noise reduction, clipping reduction, and/or equalization (the resulting sound, though not perfect, is far less noisy than the original).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KhHdczNa63w?t=001