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STS-61B Space Shuttle Projects. NASA public domain image colelction.
STS-61B Space Shuttle Projects. NASA public domain image colelction.
STS-61B Space Shuttle Projects. NASA public domain image colelction.
STS-61B Space Shuttle Projects. NASA public domain image colelction.
STS-61B Space Shuttle Projects. NASA orbital flight public domain image.
STS-61B Space Shuttle Projects. NASA orbital flight public domain image.
Launch of Space Shuttle Endeavour on mission STS-61
X-59. Public domain image of NASA aircraft.
Launch of Space Shuttle Endeavour on mission STS-61
STS-61B Space Shuttle Projects. NASA public domain image colelction.
Summary
This image of the free-flying SATCOM KU-2 satellite, still attached to a Payload Assist Module-D (PAM-D), was photographed during STS-61B, the 23rd Space Shuttle mission. The SATCOM KU-2 is an RCA communication satellite and was launched on November 26, 1985, aboard the Space Shuttle Orbiter Atlantis. The PAM-D is an upper stage system used to deploy payloads to a required orbit unattainable by the launch vehicle.
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.