Largest Space Crew Blasts Off In Shuttle

October 31, 1985|By United Press International.

CAPE CANAVERAL, FLA. — Three Europeans and five NASA astronauts, the world`s largest space crew, rocketed into orbit aboard the shuttle Challenger Wednesday on a Spacelab research flight chartered by West Germany.

The space scientists activated the shuttle`s laboratory module a few hours later and began a week of experiments.

``There are many people sitting and watching you,`` said an official at the West German science control center in Oberpfaffenhofen, about 15 miles from Munich. ``We see that you behaved in a fantastic way. We all feel very proud of you, all of you up there.``

The mission, the first paid for and managed by another country, marked a key step toward full European participation in America`s permanent space station to be assembled in orbit in 1993.

Challenger, making its ninth flight and the 22d shuttle mission, blasted off at 11 a.m. Chicago time and raced toward the northeast, parallel to the East Coast, and reached its final, 201-mile-high orbit 47 minutes later.

``That was a nice ascent,`` said copilot Steven Nagel, 39, making his second space flight.

He and veteran shuttle commander Henry Hartsfield, 51, were at Challenger`s controls for the nine-minute climb into orbit. Also on the flight deck were NASA veterans James Buchli, 40, and Guion Bluford, 42, who became the first American black in space in 1983.

Bonnie Dunbar, 36, the seventh American woman to fly in space, sat on the lower deck along with physicists Ernst Messerschmid, 40, and Reinhard Furrer, 44, both of West Germany, and European Space Agency astronaut Wubbo Ockels, 39, also a physicist, of The Netherlands.

Two minor troubles were reported, with a control rocket fuel system and a fuel cell generator, but flight director Gary Coen said neither would affect the mission.

The crew had the Spacelab module in the shuttle`s open cargo bay activated five hours after blastoff, and long periods of television from space showed as many as five astronauts busy at work inside the 23-foot-long laboratory, linked to the main cabin by an 18-foot tunnel.

They began turning on various experiment assemblies, including a multipurpose station designed to study plants, tissues, cells, bacteria and insects, and another biological experiment package called the

Biowissenschaften containing, among other things, a small botanical garden.

NASA has two Spacelabs and this is the first flight of the second. The first has flown on two previous missions.

The flight is designated Spacelab D1--the ``D`` stands for Deutschland

--and the research part of it is being directed for the first time by scientists at the German Space Operations Control Center in Oberpfaffenhofen via a satellite link with the United States.

The German Aerospace Research Establishment paid NASA about $67 million to hire Challenger for the Spacelab mission. In addition, the scientific equipment was assembled at a cost of $175 million.

Landing is scheduled for Nov. 6 at Edwards Air Force Base in California, where a new shuttle steering system will be tested.