Mission STS-41G
Mission description
Text version
The National Research Council mission patch for STS-41G is commemorative of the first space flight by a Canadian.
The design is based on Leonardo da Vinci's famous Vitruvian Man, the drawing of a man whose outstretched arms touch the perimeter of a square and whose feet, the circumference of a circle. In this case, the central figure and two others, free-floating behind it, denote weightlessness in space. The three figures represent the different research areas involved in the experiments Garneau conducted during the mission – space technology, space science and life sciences.
Patch STS-41G. (Credit: Canadian Space Agency)
Launch
Date:
Time: 7:03 a.m. ET
Site: Kennedy Space Center, Florida
Landing
Date:
Time: 12:26 p.m. ET
Site: Kennedy Space Center, Florida
Mission duration: 8 days 5 h 23 min 33 s
Orbiter vehicle: Challenger
Payloads: Earth Radiation Budget Satellite, eight Getaway Specials canisters, ten Canadian Experiments, IMAX camera, Orbital Refueling System experiment, Office of Space and Terrestrial Applications payload, Aurora Photography Experiment, gamma radiation monitoring equipment, thermoluminescent dosimeter.
On , Marc Garneau made history when he became the first Canadian to fly in space on Shuttle Mission STS-41G.
In , NASA sought out Canadian expertise for the development of a robotic arm for the Space Shuttle, the famous Canadarm, which flew for the first time in . That marked the beginning of a close collaboration between Canada and the United States in human space flight and resulted in NASA inviting a Canadian astronaut to participate in a space mission. That invitation led to the creation of the first team of Canadian astronauts in .
Since this historic eight-day flight, nine Canadian Space Agency (CSA) astronauts have participated in 17 space flights and three are training for a mission.
Similarly to Canadarm creating the first flight opportunity for a Canadian, contributing Canadarm3 to Gateway has helped secure flights for CSA astronauts as part of the Artemis program, including Jeremy Hansen's participation in Artemis II.
Marc Garneau uses a Canadian-made Sun photometer used to conduct an experiment. He is seen sitting on Challenger's flight deck. (Credit: NASA)
About STS-41G
During the mission, Marc Garneau conducted 10 Canadian experiments in three main categories for the National Research Council (NRC), the CSA's predecessor:
- Space technology: important development tests for the NRC Space Vision System and tests to determine the effect of exposure to space on different advanced composite materials
- Space science: studies dealt with the physical characteristics of the space environment and of Earth's upper atmosphere
- Life sciences: several experiments on human adaptation to space flight as preparation for more detailed investigations on future missions
All the equipment he needed for the 10 experiments fit into one locker about half the size of a legal-size filing cabinet drawer.
Mission STS-41G crew
(Seated left to right) Jon A. McBride, pilot; mission specialists Sally K. Ride, Kathryn D. Sullivan, and David C. Leestma. Standing in the rear, left to right, are payload specialists Paul D. Scully-Power and Marc Garneau with crew commander Robert L. Crippen in the middle. (Credit: NASA)
STS-41G was also a mission of many other firsts, including:
- first Shuttle flight with a seven-person crew, the largest at that time
- first flight to include two women
- first American woman to perform a spacewalk
- first entry profile crossing eastern United States
- first crewman to fly a fourth Shuttle mission
- first demonstration of a satellite refueling technique in space
Marc Garneau went on to fly two other times in space, aboard Space Shuttle missions STS-77 () and STS-97 ().
The seven astronauts crew exits Challenger after landing at NASA's Kennedy Space Center on . (Credit: NASA)