STS-61A

STS-61A was the German D-1 Spacelab mission and one of the most distinctive laboratory flights of the Space Shuttle era. Challenger launched from Kennedy Space Center's Launch Complex 39A on October 30, 1985, with Henry Hartsfield as commander, Steven Nagel as pilot, Bonnie Dunbar, James Buchli, and Guion Bluford as NASA mission specialists, and Reinhard Furrer, Ernst Messerschmid, and Wubbo Ockels as European payload specialists. NASA's mission page lists D-1 as the first German dedicated Spacelab mission and records a duration of 7 days, 0 hours, 44 minutes, and 51 seconds. The flight carried the Shuttle program's first eight-person crew, and payload activities for Spacelab D-1 were directed from the German Space Operations Center at Oberpfaffenhofen, making it the first U.S. Shuttle mission where payload control was transferred to a foreign operations center. The crew completed more than 75 experiments in physiological sciences, materials processing, biology, navigation, communications, and technology, while also deploying the Global Low Orbiting Message Relay satellite from a Getaway Special canister. Challenger landed at Edwards Air Force Base on November 6, 1985.