A Redundant Set Launch Sequencer (RSLS) abort-the first of the shuttle era-was declared and the exhausted crew was extracted from the cockpit. On the morning of the 26th, the countdown clock ticked down to T-6.6 seconds and the shuttle’s cluster of three main engines roared to life…and abruptly shut down. A computer glitch on the 25th enforced a 24-hour delay, but worse was to come. On 22 June, three days before their scheduled launch, the 41D crew arrived at the Kennedy Space Center (KSC) for Discovery’s maiden launch. However, the Canadian satellite disappeared quickly from the payload roster and was reassigned to another flight. By early 1984, Hartsfield’s mission gained Syncom 4-1, the large-format camera, OAST-1 and a Canadian communications satellite, known as Anik-C1. Yet there were many other payloads to fill the void. The 41D mission was also the maiden voyage of shuttle Discovery. TDRS-B, planned for STS-8 in August 1983, and TDRS-C on Hartsfield’s flight, were deleted from the shuttle manifest. Originally, they were designated “STS-12” and tasked with launching the third Tracking and Data Relay Satellite (TDRS-C)-part of a network of geostationary-orbiting sentinels to provide near-continuous voice and data coverage between shuttle astronauts and ground stations- but an Inertial Upper Stage (IUS) booster malfunction during the TDRS-A flight in April 1983 obliged NASA to place all future TDRS missions on hold. Yet their mission had shifted and contorted many times since their assignment in early 1983. Commanded by veteran astronaut Hank Hartsfield, the crew also included Mike Coats, Mike Mullane, Steve Hawley, Judy Resnik and the first industry representative ever to fly aboard the shuttle, McDonnell Douglas engineer Charlie Walker. Navy’s Syncom 4-1 communications satellite, a large-format imaging camera and the extendible OAST-1 solar array mast, provided by NASA’s Office of Aeronautics and Space Technology, the flight would run for seven days. That is, until the morning of 26 June 1984.Īs outlined in a previous AmericaSpace history article, Discovery’s maiden mission, designated “41D”, was ready to fly. In three years of shuttle operations, the ships had demonstrated their abilities to serve as scientific research platforms, satellite launching pads and could retrieve and repair damaged spacecraft. Touted for over a decade as capable of flying regularly and routinely, the early summer of 1984 was envisaged to see as many as three missions by Discovery and Challenger-two laden with scientific and technological payloads, the third a classified voyage on behalf of the Department of Defense-as the reusable fleet of orbiters transitioned from test-flights to full operations. More than 30 summers ago, America’s shuttle program should have entered its prime. An ominous cloud of smoke billows away from Pad 39A in the seconds after a problematic Main Engine Start on 26 June 1984.
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