Sept 5, 1983: Challenger approaches Runway 22 at Edwards Air Force Base, California, completing the first night landing of the Shuttle program.

*****

As midnight clicks the date to September 5, 1983, we close Challenger’s payload bay doors on all we’ve done during the previous five days.  And for a mission that some perceived as filled with scraps after our primary payload, the second Tracking and Data Relay Satellite (TDRS), was pulled, we’ve accomplished a lot.  And we have one more first to achieve, the first night landing in the Shuttle program.  We’re the crew of STS-8:  Dick Truly, Dan Brandenstein, Guy Bluford, Dale Gardner and Dr. Bill Thornton.

Don’t tell us this flight hasn’t been chock full.  On Flight Day 2 (August 31), we deployed India’s Insat satellite.  “Houston, we’re happy to let you know that Insat was deployed on time with no anomalies and the satellite looked good.”

  We heard a solid “clunk” as it kicked away.  This was not a first but a fifth — the fifth communications satellite/Payload Assist Module combination lofted by the Shuttle.

We then spent two days weight lifting — that is, using the Remote Manipulator System (RMS), the 50-ft.-long robot arm, to exercise the largest object in size and mass it had ever lifted, the Payload Flight Test Article (PFTA), that surely looked like a large dumbbell.  We worked with it for more than 6 hrs. on Flight Day 3 and more than 4 hrs. on Flight Day 4.

We reported, “The performance of the arm was excellent.  With the PFTA on there in both the auto and manual augmented modes, movement was very smooth.  There was probably some dynamics there, but it was practically unnoticeable once you started flying it around and got a feel for it.”

We observe what is coming to be called Shuttle glow, a luminescence at night around the tail and twin Orbital Maneuvering Systems (OMS) engine pods at the rear of the Orbiter.  “When we were in darkness, we could see the OMS pod and tail glowing slightly.  When the aft vernier jets fired to maintain attitude, they very brilliantly glow and a residual glow lasted for some time — oh, died off over a period of a minute or so . . . ”  

The glow is caused when the Shuttle hits and excites the free atoms of oxygen at orbital altitudes.  Information on the glow is important, as it could affect telescopes to be carried on future astronomy flights.  And material exposed to orbit for prolonged periods could degrade due to the impingement of the atoms.

Down in the middeck, Dr. Bill Thornton continues studies of space motion sickness.  And motion is the word as he puts us through a series of head and body movements while recording the reaction of our vestibular system.  And he served as his prime test subject.  During an in-flight press conference, he says, “I learned more in the first hour and a half on orbit here than I had by all the literature research I had done and all the active work in the past year.”

We tell Houston, “Its a shame you haven’t seen or heard more from Bill in the last couple of days, but I assure you, he’s been working harder than anybody down there on his stuff in the middeck.  Almost everybody that’s absent from the conversation is down there helping him get measurements. 

. . . I’m going to get him up here and gray tape in a chair so he can look out the window a little bit.”

The middeck is a busy place.  We also run the refrigerator-sized Continuous Flow Electrophoresis System on its fourth flight.  The system separates biological material by electrical charge as the samples flow through an electrical field.  For the first time live cells, pancreatic cells from dogs, were used.  The hope is to be able to separate out pure samples of Beta cells that produce insulin, purer samples than can be produced on Earth.

And let’s not forget our six additional passengers — six white rats in a test of the cages that will be used on future life sciences flights.  We joke, “The first day, they were all asking for their money back on the tickets, but they seem to have settled in rather nicely since that time.”

Every flight encounters a bit of unexpected excitement.  Ours, if you could call it that, occurred when two of our five General Purpose Computers.  Two GPCs, performing the same operations to check each other experienced a hiccup.  They lost time synchronization, what we call “a set split.”

We’re out of communications range when it happens Coming into contact over the Guam station, we call, “Roger, Houston, and I need to take to you.  We’ve had a redundant set split . . .”

“Roger, copy, we’ll be looking at the data here in a second.”

Perhaps struck by a cosmic ray, a single “bit” of information had flipped — a zero changed to a one or the reverse in the binary code.   We reloaded the computer and . . .

“OK . . . We’re back in good shape.  GPC went back into the set by the book . . . and now we’re essentially in the nominal configuration.”

*

All of that is behind us now.  We’re now on our final orbit, in daylight over the Indian Ocean, out of radio contact.  At 2:47 a.m. (EDT) we fire the twin OMS engines for nearly 2 min. 37 sec.  As we come into range of the Guam tracking station, we report, “Burn was on time and nominal.”

About 15 min. after the burn, we reach Entry Interface, slicing into the first thin layers of atmosphere.  We’re the first Shuttle to fly the entire descent in darkness and see the full duration of the ionization trail as we plow through the gathering atmosphere.  Looking back through the overhead windows as he did at times during launch, Dale sees flashes toward the tail as the ionization wake forms.  The flashes flicker and move side to side.  Then up front, a glow begins around Challenger’s nose, salmon pink at first.  Then deepening to orange.  And finally become white hot, turbulent as it passes by the edges of the windows.  

It’s a busy return, as Shuttle testing, even though the system is officially “operational,” continues.  Challenger is programmed to make nine test maneuvers spread through the four wide S-turns we make to reduce speed.  Those S-turns begin with a with a left bank as we fly over the central Pacific.  We’re slowing fast and steady, watching over the Programmed Test Inputs (PTIs), as the test maneuvers are called.

“OK, Houston, we are coming through Mach 8,” our commander, Dick Truly, radios,  “All the  PTIs look real good and stable so far, very well done.”

We see the lights of the coast, 10 min. until landing.  More PTIs follow as we bank to the north, toward the California coast, Mach 6.6 and slowly.  Left rudder, right aileron. Left yaw.  Rudder commands to test its effectiveness.  Mach 3.5, we make our last S-turn roll reversal, a final right bank.  Five more test inputs are made into the control system.  Mach 2, down to 75,000 ft. altitude.  We see the night lighting system at Edwards Air Force Base.  We’re still 50 mi. out.  The runway is illuminated by rows of powerful Xenon searchlights.  At 15,000 ft., 10 mi. out, Truly calls, “OK, Houston, the lights look really pretty.”

We make the left turn around the alignment circle and line up with Runway 22.  The capcom calls, “Challenger, Houston, looking good on final.”  At a range of 1 mi., the gear come down.

We nail it, the main gear touching down 2,800 ft. down the runway, right in the center of the target.  It’s 3:40 a.m. (EDT).  After rolling 9,200 ft., we come to a stop. “Houston, Challenger, stopped.”  Our flight of 6 days, 1 hr, 8 min. and 40 sec. is over.

“Welcome back.  Great show.”

“Shoot, that was fun.  Let’s go do it again,” Dick calls.

However, Dick Truly won’t do it again.  He’s leaving NASA, going back in the Navy.  However he will return after the Challenger accident, serving in management as Associate Administrator and in 1989 becoming NASA’s eighth Administrator.