STS-8 was the eighth NASA Space Shuttle mission and the third flight of the Space Shuttle Challenger. It launched on August 30, 1983, and landed on September 5, 1983, conducting the first night launch and night landing of the Space Shuttle program. It also carried the first African-American astronaut to go into space, Guion Bluford. The mission successfully achieved all of its planned research objectives, but was marred by the subsequent discovery that a solid-fuel rocket booster had almost malfunctioned catastrophically during the launch. The mission's primary payload was INSAT-1B, an Indian communications and weather observation satellite, which was released by the orbiter and boosted into a geostationary orbit. The secondary payload, replacing a delayed NASA communications satellite, was a four-metric-ton dummy payload, intended to test the use of the shuttle's Canadarm (remote manipulator system). Scientific experiments carried on board Challenger included the environmental testing of new hardware and materials designed for future spacecraft, the study of biological materials in electric fields under microgravity, and research into space adaptation syndrome (also known as "space sickness"). The flight furthermore served as shakedown testing for the previously launched TDRS-1 satellite, which would be required to support the subsequent STS-9 mission.
Crew
This mission had a crew of five, with three mission specialists. It was the second mission (after STS-7) to fly with a crew of five, the largest carried by a single spacecraft up to that date. The crew was historically notable for the participation of Guion Bluford, who became the first African-American to fly in space. The commander, Truly, was the only veteran astronaut of the crew, having flown as the pilot on STS-2 in 1981 and for two of the Approach and Landing Tests (ALT) aboard Enterprise in 1977. Prior to this, he had worked as a capsule communicator (CAPCOM) for all three Skylab missions and the ASTP mission. Brandenstein, Gardner and Bluford had all been recruited in 1978, and been training for a mission since 1979. The mission had originally been planned for a crew of four, with Thornton added to the crew as a third mission specialist in December 1982, eight months after the crew was originally named. As with Truly, he was an Apollo-era recruit, having joined NASA in 1967. His participation on the mission included a series of tests aimed at gathering information on the physiological changes linked with Space Adaptation Syndrome, more commonly known as "space sickness"; this had become a focus of attention in NASA, as astronauts succumbed to it during Shuttle missions. The orbiter carried two Extravehicular Mobility Unit (EMUs) for use in case of an emergency spacewalk; if needed, they would be used by Truly and Gardner.
Crew seat assignments
Mission plan and payloads
An early plan for STS-8, released in April 1982, had scheduled it for July 1983. It was expected to be a three-day mission with four crew members, and would launch INSAT-1B, an Indian satellite, and TDRS-B, a NASA communications relay satellite. However, following problems with the Inertial Upper Stage (IUS) used to deploy TDRS-A on the STS-6 mission, it was announced in May 1983 that the TDRS was not going to be flown. It was replaced in the manifest by the Payload Flight Test Article. After re-development of the IUS, TDRS-B was eventually re-manifested for the STS-51-L mission, and was lost along with the Space Shuttle Challenger and its crew when the launch failed in January 1986. The primary element of the STS-8 mission payload was INSAT-1B. It was the second in a series of multi-purpose weather and communications satellites to be operated by the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO); the first, INSAT-1A, had been launched by a Delta launch vehicle in April 1982, but had to be shut down shortly afterwards due to a failure of the onboard reaction control system (RCS). The satellite was carried in the rear of the shuttle's payload bay, and was boosted into a Geostationary transfer orbit (GTO) by a Payload Assist Module (PAM-D), a small solid rocket upper stage, after its release from the orbiter. The satellite, with its upper stage, massed a total of 3,377 kg (7,445 lb), with the cradle massing another 1,102 kg (2,429 lb), and had cost around US$50 million.
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