Challenger Ends 1st Flight With a European Payload

The space shuttle Challenger dropped out of a clear upper atmosphere and all but disappeared as it landed in a dense desert haze today, capping a seven-day flight that marked a new era in international cooperation in space.

Twin sonic booms announced the end of the mission, the first manned spaceflight in history with a payload controlled by a country other than the United States or the Soviet Union. The European-built Spacelab aboard the Challenger was commanded by a German control center near Munich, although operational control of the shuttle remained with Johnson Space Center in Houston.

West Germany paid the National Aeronautics and Space Administration about $65 million to charter the shuttle, which carried the $1-billion Spacelab.

As the crew prepared for the landing early this morning, Mission Control in Houston warned that Southern California’s weather would be sunny but a bit thick.

A couple of miles above the landing site, Challenger commander Henry W. Hartsfield Jr. was told, not a cloud could be seen within “about 300 miles.” But he was told to expect visibility to drop to “about five miles or so” after punching through a brown blanket of gunk that covered the desert.

Hartsfield and pilot Steven R. Nagel brought the giant glider in for a perfect landing at 9:45 a.m. after orbiting the Earth 111 times. 30.

The record crew of eight, including three European scientists, climbed out about half an hour later and made the traditional walk around the craft. Some of the crew members will go back to Kennedy Space Center in Florida where they will undergo about two weeks of tests to see how they re-adapt to gravity, and the rest will return to their homes in Houston.

About 75 experiments were conducted during the flight by West German scientists Ernst Messerschmid and Reinhard Furrer, and Dutch scientist Wubbo J. Ockels. They were assisted by crew members Bonnie J. Dunbar, James F. Buchli and Guion S. Bluford Jr. of NASA.