Launch from Cape Canaveral (KSC); landing on Edwards AFB. A launch set for November 19, 1991 was delayed due to replacing and testing a malfunctioning redundant inertial measurement unit on the Inertial Upper Stage booster attached to the Defense Support Program satellite. The launch was reset for November 24, 1991 and was delayed 13 minutes to allow an orbiting spacecraft to pass and to allow external tank liquid oxygen replenishment after minor repairs to a valve in the liquid oxygen replenishment system in the mobile launcher platform.

The mission was dedicated to the Department of Defense. The unclassified payload included a Defense Support Program (DSP) satellite and attached Inertial Upper Stage (IUS), deployed on flight day one. Cargo bay and middeck payloads included the Interim Operational Contamination Monitor (IOCM), Terra Scout, Military Man in Space (M88-1), Air Force Maui Optical System (AMOS), Cosmic Radiation Effects and Activation Monitor (CREAM), Shuttle Activation Monitor (SAM), Radiation Monitoring Equipment III (RME III), Visual Function Tester-1 (VFT-1), Ultraviolet Plume Instrument (UVPI), Bioreactor Flow, Particle Trajectory experiment, and Extended Duration Orbiter Medical Project, a series of investigations in support of Extended Duration Orbiter.

A COLA maneuver to fly in save distance to Kosmos 851 launch rocket was needed. The landing was originally scheduled for the Kennedy Space Center on December 4, 1991 but the ten-days mission was shortened and the landing rescheduled and diverted to the Edwards AFB following the November 30, 1991 on-orbit failure of one of three orbiter inertial measurement units (IMU 2 = Inertial Measurement Unit).