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From: rjnoe@riccb.UUCP (Roger J. Noe)
Newsgroups: net.columbia
Subject: Mission 61-A/Spacelab D-1 Launch
Message-ID: <571@riccb.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 30-Oct-85 12:06:43 EST
Article-I.D.: riccb.571
Posted: Wed Oct 30 12:06:43 1985
Date-Received: Sat, 2-Nov-85 02:32:59 EST
Distribution: net
Organization: Rockwell International - Downers Grove, IL
Lines: 16

Space shuttle Challenger lifted off on its ninth mission at 17:00 GMT today,
30 October 1985.  Mission 22 (61-A), also called Spacelab D-1 (erste Deutsche),
will focus primarily on about 75 materials processing experiments.  Conducting
these experiments will be a crew composed of five NASA astronauts and three
payload specialists, two of whom are German and the other Dutch.  The mission
will be controlled primarily by the DFVLR (German federal aerospace research
agency), not by NASA in Houston.  Landing is planned for one week from today
at Edwards Air Force Base in California.

This launch occurs just 27 days since the last one at Kennedy Space Center.
It is also the first time that a crew larger than seven has been launched on
a shuttle.  Isn't it pretty amazing that NASA can now manage to launch a crew
larger than the entire first group of Mercury astronauts and do it less than
four weeks since the last launch from the same complex?
--
Roger Noe			ihnp4!riccb!rjnoe