Mission type Satellite deployment Landing site Vandenberg Runway 12 | Launch site Vandenberg SLC-6 Start date July 15, 1986 Crew size 7 | |
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Launch date 15 July 1986Not launched Members Robert Crippen, Guy Gardner, Mike Mullane, Jerry L. Ross, Dale Gardner | ||
Sts 62 a the polar express orbiter space flight simulator
STS-62-A was a planned Space Shuttle mission to deliver a reconnaissance payload (Teal Ruby) into polar orbit. It was expected to use Discovery. It would have been the first manned launch from Vandenberg Air Force Base, California, and the first manned mission to go into polar orbit. The mission designation, 62-A, meant: 6=fiscal year 1986, 2=Vandenberg (1=Kennedy Space Center), and A=first flight in that fiscal year.
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Post-Challenger accident
The destruction of Challenger and subsequent halt of the Space Shuttle Program led to the cancellation of the mission.
Guy Gardner, Jerry Ross, and Mike Mullane were members of the second post-Challenger mission STS-27—a classified mission for the DoD—during which the Lacrosse-1 radar reconnaissance spacecraft was allegedly deployed.