Launch from Cape Canaveral (KSC); landing on Edwards AFB.

First flight of a space shuttle after the Challenger-disaster. The launch was delayed for 1 hour and 38 minutes because of unseasonable and unusual light winds aloft, and to replace fuses in the cooling systems of two crew members' flight suits.

The primary payload for the STS-26 mission, a Tracking an Data Relay Satellite (TDRS-C), was successfully deployed, and 11 scheduled middeck scientific and technological experiments, as Protein Crystal Growth (PCG) and Infrared Communications Flight Experiment (IRCFE) and three life sciences experiment were carried out.