Manned Maneuvering Unit (MMU) First Flight: Space Shuttle STS-41-B (STS-10) Highlights 1984 NASA

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1st flight of the Manned Maneuvering Unit (MMU); Astronaut Bruce McCandless, the first human Earth-orbiting satellite, ventured out 320 feet (98 m) from the orbiter.

Commander: Vance D. Brand
Pilot: Robert L. Gibson
Mission Specialists: Bruce McCandless, II, Robert L. Stewart, Ronald E. McNair
Dates: February 3-11, 1984
Vehicle: Challenger OV-099
Payloads: PALAPA B-2/PAM-D, WESTAR-VI/PAM-D, IRT, MLR, ACES, IEF, RME, SPAS-01A, SSIP (one experiment), GAS (five experiments), and Cinema 360 camera
EVA: (MMU) tested Manned Maneuvering Unit
Landing site: Runway 15 at Kennedy Space Center, FL

Narrated by the Commander and crew, this program contains footage selected by the astronauts, as well as their comments on the mission. Footage includes launch, onboard crew activities, and landing.

NASA film JSC-849

Public domain film slightly cropped to remove uneven edges, with the aspect ratio corrected, and mild video noise reduction applied.
The soundtrack was also processed with volume normalization, noise reduction, clipping reduction, and equalization (the resulting sound, though not perfect, is far less noisy than the original).

Public domain film from the US National Archives, slightly cropped to remove uneven edges, with the aspect ratio corrected, and one-pass brightness-contrast-color correction & mild video noise reduction applied.
The soundtrack was also processed with volume normalization, noise reduction, clipping reduction, and/or equalization (the resulting sound, though not perfect, is far less noisy than the original).

STS-41-B was the tenth NASA Space Shuttle mission, launching on 3 February 1984 and landing on 11 February. It was the fourth flight of the Space Shuttle Challenger. Following STS-9, the flight numbering system for the Space Shuttle program was changed. Thus, the next flight, instead of being designated STS-11, became STS 41-B; the original successor to STS-9, STS-10, was cancelled due to payload delays…

Challenger lifted off from Kennedy Space Center at 8 am EST on 3 February 1984. Two communications satellites were deployed about 8 hours after launch; one, WESTAR, was for Western Union, and the other, Palapa B-2, for Indonesia. However, the Payload Assist Modules (PAM) for both satellites malfunctioned, placing them into a lower-than-planned orbit. Both satellites were retrieved successfully the following November, during STS-51-A, by the orbiter Discovery.

The STS 41-B crew included commander Vance D. Brand, making his second Shuttle flight; pilot Robert L. Gibson; and mission specialists Bruce McCandless II, Ronald E. McNair and Robert L. Stewart.

On the fourth day of the mission, astronauts McCandless and Stewart performed the first untethered spacewalk, operating the Manned Maneuvering Unit (MMU) for the first time. McCandless, the first human Earth-orbiting satellite, ventured out 320 feet (98 m) from the orbiter, while Stewart tested the “work station” foot restraint at the end of the Remote Manipulator System. On the seventh day of the mission, both astronauts performed an EVA to practice capture procedures for the Solar Maximum Mission satellite retrieval and repair operation, which was planned for the next mission, STS-41-C.

STS 41-B also achieved the reflight of the West German-sponsored SPAS-l pallet/satellite, which had originally flown on STS-7. This time, however, it remained in the payload bay due to an electrical problem in the RMS. The mission also carried five GAS canisters, six live rats in the middeck area, a Cinema-360 camera and a continuation of the Continuous Flow Electrophoresis System and Monodisperse Latex Reactor experiments.

The 7-day, 23-hour, 15-minute, 55-second flight ended on 11 February 1984, at 7:15 am EST; at Kennedy Space Center’s Shuttle Landing Facility — the first landing of a spacecraft at its launch site. The uncredited landing of STS-41-B is shown at the beginning of the IMAX documentary The Dream is Alive. During STS-41-B, Challenger completed 127 orbits and traveled 2.8 million miles.