Launch from Cape Canaveral (
KSC);
landing on Edwards
AFB.
Successful deploying of communications
satellites Anik C-2/Telesat-7 (Canada) and Palapa B-1 (Indonesia) on the first
both flight days were performed. In this mission the first deployment and
retrieval exercise with the Shuttle Pallet Satellite
SPAS-01
(Germany) including 10 experiments was done.
Sally
Ride
became first American woman to fly in space. It was first mission with a crew
of five persons.
This mission also carried seven GAS canisters which
contained a wide variety of experiments, as well as the
OSTA-2 payload, a joint U.S.-West German scientific
pallet payload. Among these experiments was an experiment with ants.
Electrophoresis experiments and Monodisperse Latex Reactor (
MLR)
experiments were also performed.
STS-7 was scheduled to make the first
Shuttle landing at the Kennedy Space Center's Shuttle Landing Facility, but bad
weather conditions forced a change again to Edwards
AFB.
