Launch of the Shuttle Atlantis and begining of STS 61-B mission
Summary
61B-S-067 (26 Nov 1985) --- Space Shuttle Atlantis ascends into the night sky at 7:29 p.m. (EST), November 26, with a seven member crew and three communications satellites aboard. The STS 61-B crewmembers are Brewster Shaw Jr., Bryan D. O?Connor, Mary L. Cleave, Sherwood C. Spring, Jerry L. Ross and Payload Specialists Rodolfo Neri of Mexico (Morelos) and Charles D. Walker of McDonnell Douglas.
The Space Shuttle program was the United States government's manned launch vehicle program from 1981 to 2011, administered by NASA and officially beginning in 1972. The Space Shuttle system—composed of an orbiter launched with two reusable solid rocket boosters and a disposable external fuel tank— carried up to eight astronauts and up to 50,000 lb (23,000 kg) of payload into low Earth orbit (LEO). When its mission was complete, the orbiter would re-enter the Earth's atmosphere and lands as a glider. Although the concept had been explored since the late 1960s, the program formally commenced in 1972 and was the focus of NASA's manned operations after the final Apollo and Skylab flights in the mid-1970s. It started with the launch of the first shuttle Columbia on April 12, 1981, on STS-1. and finished with its last mission, STS-135 flown by Atlantis, in July 2011.
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