Launch of Space Shuttle Challenger (STS-7) Poster

STS-7 was the 7th mission in the Shuttle program and had a record five people on board. The orbiter crew included Commander Robert L. Crippen, Pilot Frederick H. Hauck, and Mission Specialists John M. Fabian, Norman E. Thagard, and Sally Ride, the first American woman in space. Except for Crippen, all members of this crew were from the astronaut class of 1978, the first astronauts chosen for the Shuttle program. The crew deployed, rendezvoused with and retrieved the German-built SPAS experiment platform, which took the first full pictures of a Shuttle orbiter in space. The crew also released two communications satellites -- Anik C-2 for TELESTAT Canada and Palapa B-1 for Indonesia -- into orbit, and activated a series of materials processing experiments fixed in Challenger's cargo bay that performed research in forming metal alloys in microgravity and the use of remote sensing scanner.