Space Shuttle Columbia lifts off on a ten-day mission to deploy the LEASAT 5 communications satellite and retrieve the Long Duration Exposure Facility satellite that had been placed in orbit in 1984 by Challenger. (LDEF retrieval, delayed from 1985, had been put off by several additional years by the Challenger accident and its aftermath.) Aboard Columbia in this flight are Commander Daniel Brandenstein, Pilot James Wetherbee, and mission specialists Bonnie Dunbar, G. David Low, and Marsha Ivins.
