STS-1 (Space Transportation System-1) was the first orbital spaceflight of NASA's Space Shuttle program. The first orbiter, Columbia, launched on April 12, 1981, and returned on April 14, 1981, 54.5 hours later, having orbited the Earth 37 times. Columbia carried a crew of two—commander John W. Young and pilot Robert L. Crippen. It was the first American crewed space flight since the Apollo–Soyuz Test Project (ASTP) in 1975. STS-1 was also the maiden test flight of a new American spacecraft to carry a crew, though it was preceded by atmospheric testing (ALT) of the orbiter and ground testing of the Space Shuttle system.
The launch occurred on the 20th anniversary of Vostok 1, the first human spaceflight, performed by Yuri Gagarin for the USSR. This was a coincidence rather than a celebration of the anniversary; a technical problem had prevented STS-1 from launching two days earlier, as was planned.
Crew
Commander John Young and pilot Robert Crippen were selected as the STS-1 crew in early 1978. Young stated that as the Chief of the Astronaut Office he recommended himself to command the mission. Young, with four previous missions, was the most experienced astronaut in NASA at the time and was also the only member of NASA Astronaut Group 2 still in service. He flew twice on Project Gemini and twice on the Apollo program, walked on the Moon in 1972 as the Commander of Apollo 16, and became Chief of the Astronaut Office in 1974. Crippen, part of NASA Astronaut Group 7 after the cancellation of the Manned Orbiting Laboratory (MOL), was a rookie and would become the first of his astronaut group to fly in space. Prior to his selection on STS-1, Crippen participated in the Skylab Medical Experiment Altitude Test (SMEAT) and also served as a capsule communicator (capcom) for all three Skylab missions and the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project (ASTP).
Columbia carried Extravehicular Mobility Units (EMU) for both Young and Crippen in the event of an emergency spacewalk. If such an event occurred, Crippen would go outside the orbiter, with Young standing by in case Crippen required assistance.
Young and Crippen trained the longest for a space mission before flying in NASA history. If STS-1 had launched in March 1979 as originally scheduled "We'd have been launched about halftrained", Young said. As no one had flown the shuttle before, they helped design the craft's controls, including 2,214 switches and displays in the cockpit—about three times as many on the Apollo command module—and many contingency procedures. STS-1 carried 22 manuals, each three inches thick and together weighing ; the procedure for an electronics failure from a cooling system malfunction had 255 steps.
Backup crew
Support crew Daniel C. Brandenstein (ascent CAPCOM) Henry W. Hartsfield Joseph P. Allen (entry CAPCOM)
Mission parameters Mass: Orbiter liftoff: Orbiter landing: DFI payload: Perigee: Apogee: Inclination: 40.30° Period: 89.88 minutes
Crew seat assignments Seat Launch Landing Seats 1–4 are on the flight deck.Seats 5–7 are on the mid-deck. 1 Young 2 Crippen 3 Unused 4 Unused 5 Unused 6 Unused 7 Unused
Suborbital mission plan During the original planning stages for the early Space Shuttle missions, NASA management under the Carter Administration felt a need to undertake initial tests of the system prior to the first orbital flight. To that end, Vice President Walter F. Mondale as chairman of the National Space Council suggested a suborbital flight landing at the emergency landing site at Dakar, Senegal. NASA further suggested that STS-1, instead of being an orbital flight, be used to test the Return To Launch Site (RTLS) abort scenario. This involved an abort being called in the first few moments after launch, and using its main engines, once the SRBs had been jettisoned, to power it back to the launch site. This scenario, while potentially necessary in the event of an early abort being called, was seen as being extremely dangerous. Young overruled both proposals, and STS-1 went ahead as the first orbital mission. The NASA managers were swayed by Young questioning the need for the test, and the weight of his opinion was especially strong as he was someone who not only had been to the Moon twice, but had walked on it. He would fly the Space Shuttle again on the STS-9 mission, a ten-day flight in 1983.
Mission summary
The first launch of the Space Shuttle occurred on April 12, 1981, exactly 20years after Vostok 1 (the first crewed space flight), when the Columbia orbiter lifted off from Pad A, Launch Complex 39, at the Kennedy Space Center. The launch took place at 12:00:04UTC. A launch attempt two days earlier was scrubbed because Columbias four primary general purpose IBM System/4 Pi computers (GPCs) failed to provide correct timing to the backup flight system (BFS) when the GPCs were scheduled to transition from vehicle checkout to flight configuration mode. +AttemptPlannedResultTurnaroundReasonDecision pointNotes110 Apr 1981, 7:00:00 amScrubbed−Technical(T−18 minutes)Timing problem in one of Columbias general purpose IBM System/4 Pi computers. A software patch was installed to correct. 212 Apr 1981 7:00:04Success2 days 0 hours 0 minutes Not only was this the first launch of the Space Shuttle, but it marked the first time that solid-fuel rockets were used for a NASA crewed launch (although previous systems had used solid-fuel motors for their escape towers or retro rockets). STS-1 was also the first U.S. crewed space vehicle launched without an uncrewed powered test flight. The STS-1 orbiter, Columbia, holds the record for the longest amount of time spent in the Orbiter Processing Facility (OPF) before launch – 610 days, the time needed for the replacement of many of its heat shield tiles.
The NASA mission objective for the maiden flight was to accomplish a safe ascent into orbit and return to Earth for a safe landing of Orbiter and crew. The only payload carried on the mission was a Development Flight Instrumentation (DFI) package, which contained sensors and measuring devices to record the orbiter's performance and the stresses that occurred during launch, ascent, orbital flight, descent and landing. All 113 flight test objectives were accomplished, and the orbiter's spaceworthiness was verified.
During the final T−9minute holding period, Launch Director George Page read a message of good wishes to the crew from President Ronald Reagan, ending with, "John, we can't do more from the launch team than say, we wish you an awful lot of luck. We are with you one thousand percent and we are awful proud to have been a part of it. Good luck gentlemen."
Ignition of the three RS-25 main engines was sensed as a sharp increase in noise. The stack rocked "downwards" (towards the crew's feet), then back up to the vertical, at which point both Solid Rocket Boosters (SRBs) ignited. Crippen likened lift-off to a "steam catapult shot" (such as when an aircraft is launched from an aircraft carrier). The stack's combined northwards translation and climb above the launch tower's lightning rod were readily apparent to Young. After clearing the tower the stack began a right roll (until the +Z axis or vertical fin pointed) to a launch azimuth of 067° True (in order to achieve an orbital inclination of 40.30°), and pitched to a "heads down" attitude (to reduce loading on the wings). Simultaneously, control was passed from the launch team in Florida to Flight Director Neil Hutchinson's Silver team in Flight Control Room 1 (FCR 1) in Texas with astronaut Dan Brandenstein as their CAPCOM.
Columbia'''s main engines were throttled down to 65% thrust to transit the region of Max Q, the point during ascent when the shuttle undergoes maximum aerodynamic stress. This occurred 56 seconds into the flight at Mach1.06. The wind corrected value was (predicted , limit ). The two SRBs performed better than expected, causing a lofted trajectory, and were jettisoned after burnout at 2 minutes and 12 seconds (at altitude, higher than planned). After 8 minutes and 34 seconds Mission Elapsed Time (MET), the main engines were shut down (MECO, at altitude ) and the external tank was jettisoned 18 seconds later to eventually break up in the atmosphere and impact the Indian Ocean. Two twin-engined Orbital Maneuvering System (OMS) engine burns lasting 86 seconds initiated at 10 minutes and 34 seconds MET and 75 seconds duration at 44 minutes 2 seconds MET inserted Columbia into a orbit. This subtle deviation from the original plan of circular went largely unnoticed. In fact, it adjusted the spacecraft's orbital period to take account of the April 10, 1981, scrub, so that attempts could still be made to use KH-11 reconnaissance satellites to image Columbia on orbit. Young commented that there was a lot less vibration and noise during launch than they had expected. However, the sensations accompanying the first firing of the large Reaction Control System (RCS) jets surprised the crew. Crippen commented "it's like a big cannon just fired ... you don't like them the first time you hear them". Young reported that "the entire cabin vibrates ... it felt like the nose was being bent".
Once in orbit, both crew members safed their ejection seats and unstrapped. The next critical event was payload bay door opening. This was essential to allow heat rejection from Columbias systems via the doors' space radiators. Failure to open these by the end of the second orbit would have resulted in a return to Earth at the end of the fifth orbit, before the limited capacity of the flash evaporator cooling system was exceeded. As they opened the doors the crew noticed that they had sustained damage to thermal protection system (TPS) tiles on the OMS pods. This was televised to the ground. Shortly afterwards Young, then Crippen doffed their emergency ejection suits.
The majority of the crew's approximately 53hours in low Earth orbit was spent conducting systems tests. Despite the scheduling impact of efforts to image Columbias TPS by utilizing external assets, these were all accomplished. They included: Crew Optical Alignment Sight (COAS) calibration, star tracker performance, Inertial Measurement Unit (IMU) performance, manual and automatic RCS testing, radiation measurement, propellant crossfeeding, hydraulics functioning, fuel cell purging, and photography. The OMS-3 and OMS-4 burns at 006:20:46 and 007:05:32 MET respectively raised this orbit to (compared to a planned circular). These two firings were single engined utilizing the crossfeed system. The crew reported a cold first night on board despite acceptable temperature indications. They found the second night comfortable after settings were adjusted.
During the second day of the mission, the astronauts received a phone call from Vice President George H. W. Bush. President Ronald Reagan had originally intended to visit the Mission Control Center during the mission, but at the time was still recovering from an assassination attempt which had taken place two weeks before the launch (Reagan had returned home to the White House only the day prior to the launch).