STS-51

From Spacefaring

Q262753




STS-51 was a NASA Space Shuttle Discovery mission that launched the Advanced Communications Technology Satellite (ACTS) in September 1993. Discovery's 17th flight also featured the deployment and retrieval of the SPAS-ORFEUS satellite and its IMAX camera, which captured spectacular footage of Discovery in space. A spacewalk was also performed during the mission to evaluate tools and techniques for the STS-61 Hubble Space Telescope (HST) servicing mission later that year. STS-51 was the first shuttle mission to fly a Global Positioning System (GPS) receiver, a Trimble TANS Quadrex. It was mounted in an overhead window where limited field of view (FoV) and signal attenuation from the glass severely impacted receiver performance. Full triple-redundant 3-string GPS would not happen until 14 years later with STS-118 in 2007.

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STS051-75-000 - STS-051 - DPLA - 559b190f683b4278e57282cca27a20bbSTS051-75-000 - STS-051 - DPLA - 559b190f683b4278e57282cca27a20bb
STS051-02-017 - STS-051 - Crewmembers in middeck of orbiter - DPLA - 8a5a8a3bffa62d2e241021b06b6bf2deSTS051-02-017 - STS-051 - Crewmembers in middeck of orbiter - DPLA - 8a5a8a3bffa62d2e241021b06b6bf2de
1993 s51 IMAX view of Discovery from Spas1993 s51 IMAX view of Discovery from Spas