Launch of Space Shuttle Challenger (STS-51B) Poster

The Spacelab 3 (SL-3) mission was the second flight of Spacelab, the reusable and versatile space laboratory developed for NASA by the European Space Agency (ESA); it was also the first NASA-dedicated Spacelab mission. The SL-3 crew consisted of Commander Robert F. Overmyer, Pilot Frederick D. Gregory, Mission Specialists Don L. Lind, Norman E. Thagard, and William E. Thornton, and Payload Specialists Lodewijk van den Berg and Taylor G. Wang. Rather than carrying experiments covering a broad range of disciplines as did Spacelab 1, the SL-3 payload investigations focused mainly on microgravity and included experiments in life sciences, materials science, fluid mechanics, and atmospheric and astronomical observations.