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This Week in NASA History: STS-41C Launches – April 6, 1984

This week in 1984, space shuttle Challenger, mission STS-41C, launched from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center.
This week in 1984, space shuttle Challenger, mission STS-41C, launched from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center.

This week in 1984, space shuttle Challenger, mission STS-41C, launched from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center. The primary mission objectives were to deploy the Long Duration Exposure Facility, an orbital facility designed to test the performance of spacecraft materials, components and systems exposed to the space environment, and to capture, repair and release the Solar Max satellite. This was the first on-orbit repair of a satellite. Here, crew members train for their repair tasks in NASA Marshall Space Flight Center’s Neutral Buoyancy Simulator. The simulator prepared astronauts for extra-vehicular activities from its completion in 1968 until it was decommissioned in 1997. The NASA History Program is responsible for generating, disseminating and preserving NASA’s remarkable history and providing a comprehensive understanding of the institutional, cultural, social, political, economic, technological and scientific aspects of NASA’s activities in aeronautics and space. For more pictures like this one and to connect to NASA’s history, visit the Marshall History Program’s webpage.