Triumphant Challenger Lands
Challenger’s astronauts glided safely out of orbit and back to Earth at 12:45 p.m. today, capping a scientific journey acclaimed a sensational success after a rocky start.
Cmdr. Gordon Fullerton and pilot Roy Bridges guided the 100-ton space plane to a touchdown on the Mojave Desert runway, completing an eight-day, 3.3-million-mile trip. They came home with a rich harvest of knowledge about the solar system collected after the mission recovered dramatically from a launch abort, a lost engine and failed experiments.
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