STS-26

Lore & Background

The crew roster for STS-26 was based on the original crew assignment for STS-61-F, which would have launched the Ulysses probe from Challenger in 1986. Hauck, Lounge, and Hilmers were assigned to that flight, with Roy D. Bridges Jr. as pilot. Richard O. Covey was not on that crew. Covey was the CAPCOM operator during the STS-51-L launch who uttered the words, 'Challenger, go at throttle up' shortly before the orbiter disintegrated. The mission launched 975 days after the Challenger disaster, delayed about one hour and 38 minutes primarily due to weather (crosswinds) and a minor issue with a cooling system fuse for one crew member's suit.

Reader's Guide

STS-26 marked NASA's return to human spaceflight after the Challenger disaster, restoring confidence in the Space Shuttle program. It was the first mission since STS-4 to have all crew members wear pressure suits for launch and landing, and the first with bailout capacity since STS-4. The mission successfully deployed the TDRS-C satellite, conducted 11 mid-deck experiments, and tested a Voice Control Unit that revealed weightlessness alters human speech. Post-flight analysis showed severe damage to thermal protection tiles from cork insulation debris, a precursor to the Columbia disaster. The mission's all-veteran crew and successful execution demonstrated NASA's commitment to safety improvements.

Did You Know?

• STS-26 was the first U.S. space mission with an all-veteran crew since Apollo 11.
• The mission was delayed 975 days after the Challenger disaster.

Forged in California, Named for the Sea

Space Shuttle Atlantis, designated OV-104, was constructed by Rockwell International at its facility in Southern California before being transported to the Kennedy Space Center in eastern Florida, where it arrived in April 1985. As the fourth operational orbiter and the second-to-last of the fleet to be built, it represented a notable acceleration in production: its construction took roughly half the time required to build Columbia. When it rolled out of the Palmdale assembly plant, the vehicle weighed 68,635 kilograms—nearly 3.5 short tons less than its predecessor—while measuring 37.2 meters in length, 17.2 meters in height, and 23.7 meters in wingspan. Alongside Challenger, Atlantis was one of only two orbiters configured to carry the Shuttle-Centaur booster. Its name honors the RV Atlantis, a two-masted sailing vessel that served as the primary research ship for the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution between 1930 and 1966, linking the orbiter to a long tradition of oceanic exploration.

Pioneering the Early Years

Atlantis made its first journey to orbit on October 3, 1985, aboard mission STS-51-J, which served as the second dedicated Department of Defense flight in the shuttle program. Just 50 days later, it launched again on STS-61-B—the program's second nighttime launch—setting a record for the shortest turnaround between consecutive missions for any orbiter. After the Challenger disaster grounded the entire fleet in 1986, Atlantis returned to service and went on to fly ten missions between 1988 and 1992. Two of those, both in 1989, were particularly historic: STS-30 released the Magellan probe toward Venus, making Atlantis the first shuttle to launch an interplanetary spacecraft, while STS-34 sent the Galileo probe on its long journey to Jupiter. These planetary deployments marked a new chapter for the program, extending its reach far beyond low Earth orbit and into the outer solar system.

The STS-27 Tile Crisis

During the 1988 launch of STS-27, a fragment of insulation broke loose from the right solid rocket booster and slammed into the belly of the orbiter, shattering more than 700 thermal protection tiles and knocking one completely free. The crew was directed to use the remote manipulator arm to inspect the damaged area beneath the right wing. Because the mission carried classified payloads, the only photographs transmitted to mission control were encrypted and of such poor quality that ground personnel dismissed the visible damage as mere "lights and shadows," ordering the crew to continue operations as planned. This decision deeply angered many aboard the vehicle. Despite the extensive tile loss, Atlantis touched down safely, becoming the most heavily damaged shuttle to ever complete a successful landing. The crew's survival is credited to a steel L-band antenna plate that happened to sit directly beneath the missing tile. A comparable tile-strike scenario would tragically claim the shuttle Columbia in 2003.

Closing the Shuttle Era

Atlantis's later career was defined by its contributions to the International Space Station and the Hubble Space Telescope. In 2001, it delivered the Destiny laboratory module on STS-98 and the Quest Joint Airlock on STS-104, both critical to U.S. operations aboard the station. After the Columbia disaster, it flew STS-115 in September 2006 to carry truss segments and solar arrays, and in 2008 it brought the Columbus laboratory—the European Space Agency's largest single contribution to the ISS. In May 2009, Atlantis carried a seven-person crew to Hubble for Servicing Mission 4, during which five spacewalks totaling 37 hours installed new cameras, batteries, and a gyroscope. Its final voyage, STS-135, launched July 8, 2011, and concluded with a landing at Kennedy on July 21. By that point, Atlantis had circled the Earth 4,848 times, covering nearly 126 million miles. Today it stands on display at the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex.

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