Launch of Space Shuttle Columbia (STS-9) Poster

The maiden flight for Spacelab began on schedule at 11 a.m. EST on November 29 as STS-9 lifted away from launch pad 39A. The Spacelab 1 (SL-1) mission was the first flight of the European-built Spacelab, the first flight of non-career, non-American astronauts, and at the time, the longest mission and largest crew ever to fly. The crew included Commander John W. Young, Pilot Brewster H. Shaw, Mission Specialists Owen K. Garriott and Robert A. Parker, and Payload Specialists Byron K. Lichtenberg and Dr. Ulf Merbold. Following nearly a decade of planning and development, the Spacelab was to make its first flight on SL-1, and so demonstrate the abilities of a multi-purpose reusable scientific research laboratory designed to be carried in the payload bay of the Space Shuttle. The objectives of the Spacelab 1 mission were to verify the Spacelab system capability, to obtain valuable scientific, applications and technology data from the U.S./European multi-disciplinary payload, and to demonstrate the broad capability of Spacelab for scientific research.