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

STS-4 marked the fourth and final test flight of the Space Shuttle and the first Shuttle flight with a Department of Defense payload.

One of the main goals was the test of the "Remote Manipulator Arm", seizing an Equipment and lifted it from the cargo of the shuttle. The box of the IECM experiment (Induced Environment Contamination monitor), designed to obtain information on gases or particles being released by the orbiter in flight. This mission carried out the first commercial experiment involving Continuous Flow Electrophoresis System (CFES). The cargo included the first Get Away Specials (G-001), which contained nine experiments from Utah State University. The crew took data for two medical experiments on themselves for two student objects.

The classified Air Force payload was the apparatus "DOD 82-1". This payload remained the whole mission in the payload bay. Another payload was the Development Flight Instrumentation, collecting information about the Shuttle during the flight.