Columbia STS-3 - Jack Lousma & Gordon Fullerton

[catdlr]

Space Shuttle 3rd Flight: "One Step Closer" 1982 NASA; STS-3; Jack Lousma & Gordon Fullerton

Jeff Quitney
Published on May 25, 2017

"Astronauts: Jack R. Lousma and C. Gordon Fullerton Launch date: March 22, 1982 Recaps the third flight of Columbia; a flight that brought the Orbital Flight Test Program one step closer to completion. This includes the move of landing equipment to Northrup Strip, NM (alternate landing site), launch, major crew activities on-orbit, sandstorm at landing site, waveoff of landing (causing Columbia to stay on-orbit an extra day), and landing."

NASA film JSC-821

STS-3 was NASA's third Space Shuttle mission, and was the third mission for the Space Shuttle Columbia. It was the first shuttle launch with an unpainted external tank, and the only mission to land at the White Sands Space Harbor near Las Cruces, New Mexico.

Columbia was launched from Kennedy Space Center at 11:00 am EST, on 22 March 1982, the planned launch date. The launch was delayed by one hour due to the failure of a heater on a nitrogen-gas ground support line. Prior to the launch, Columbia had spent only 70 days in the Orbiter Processing Facility—a record checkout time. The two-man crew consisted of Jack R. Lousma, commander, and Charles G. Fullerton, pilot.

The primary objectives of the flight were to continue testing the "Canadarm" Remote Manipulator System (RMS), and to carry out extensive thermal testing of Columbia by exposing its tail, nose and top to the Sun for varying periods of time...

In addition, in its payload bay, Columbia again carried the DFI package, and OSS-l (named for the NASA Office of Space Science and Applications) which consisted of a number of instruments mounted on a Spacelab pallet...

For the first time, a number of experiments were carried in the shuttle's mid-deck lockers. These included a Continuous Flow Electrophoresis System experiment... The first Shuttle Student Involvement Project (SSIP) -- a study of insect motion - also was carried in a mid-deck locker...

STS-3 was planned as a 7-day flight. The landing was moved to Northrop Strip (later renamed White Sands Space Harbor) at White Sands Missile Range, New Mexico. since the planned landing site at Edwards Air Force Base had flooded due to excessive rain. Lousma and Fullerton chose to land at White Sands instead of the new Shuttle Landing Facility at Kennedy Space Center because they had trained there... High winds at White Sands reduced visibility and delayed the landing by a day...

Touchdown finally took place at 9:05 am MST, 30 March 1982, at Northrop Strip. STS-3 was the only shuttle mission to land at White Sands. The final approach was in part flown by the shuttle's autopilot, but the autoland program was not complete, and it was not meant to be an automatic landing. Rolling out on finals, the autopilot was reengaged, and responded by closing the speedbrakes (despite the orbiter being on profile), resulting in increased speed. The autopilot then commanded full speedbrakes, and kept oscillating like this for some time. Lousma left the autopilot activated in order to gather data on its behaviour, but disconnected it again at a very late stage to touch down manually. The landing was also one of the more dramatic of the program, with the landing gear deploying at 150 feet at 275kts, locked just 5 seconds before touch down, and the nose being raised again right before nose-gear touchdown. The landing demonstrated that the shuttle could land in the desert, but sand damaged the orbiter.

Columbia made 130 orbits and traveled 3,300,000 miles (5,300,000 km) during its 8-day, 4-minute, 45-second flight. A total of 36 thermal protection tiles were lost and 19 were damaged. The orbiter was returned to KSC on 6 April 1982.

STS-3 was the last mission for which NASA named a complete full-time backup crew.

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Originally a public domain film from NASA, 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).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/STS-3
Wikipedia license: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

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[FutureSpaceTourist]

STS-3 | Preparing the Space Shuttle Columbia for Launch

Shuttlesource
14 Dec 2024

Take a rare behind-the-scenes look at the preparation for NASA's third Space Shuttle mission, STS-3. This video showcases the mating of the Space Shuttle Columbia to its External Tank (ET) and the twin Solid Rocket Boosters (SRBs) at the Kennedy Space Center inside the Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB). Video recorded February 3, 1982, courtesy NASA/National Archives.

Columbia STS-3 Astronaut Crew:
Commander: Jack Lousma
Pilot: Gordon Fullerton

[FutureSpaceTourist]

STS-3 Space Shuttle Columbia Landing at White Sands – Chase Plane Footage

Shuttlesource
7 Feb 2025

On March 30, 1982, Space Shuttle Columbia (STS-3) made history by landing at White Sands Space Harbor in New Mexico, marking the only time a space shuttle landed at this location. This rare and incredible footage, captured from one of NASA’s T-38 chase aircraft, provides a breathtaking aerial perspective of Columbia as it descends from orbit and touches down on the runway.

STS-3 was the third orbital flight of the space shuttle program, piloted by Commander Jack Lousma and Pilot Gordon Fullerton. Originally scheduled to land at Edwards Air Force Base, adverse weather conditions forced NASA to divert the landing to White Sands—a site that had been designated as an alternate but never before used for shuttle operations.

Video courtesy NASA/National Archives, no audio.