On This Day in Space! April 7, 1983: 1st spacewalk from a NASA space shuttle, ,

On April 7, 1983, astronauts took the first spacewalk outside of a space shuttle during mission STS-6. This was the maiden voyage of the space shuttle Challenger.

The goal of this mission was to deploy the first Tracking and Data Relay Satellite, TDRS-1. NASA now uses a whole fleet of these satellites to relay communications between spacecraft in orbit and ground stations down on Earth.

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Astronauts Story Musgrave, left, and Donald Peterson float about in the cargo bay of the Earth-orbiting space shuttle Challenger during their April 7, 1983. It was the first spacewalk from a space shuttle. (Image credit: NASA)

NASA astronauts Don Peterson and Story Musgrave spent 4 hours and 17 minutes working in the vacuum of space while doing a series of tests in the shuttle’s payload bay. This was also the first time that NASA’s Extravehicular Mobility Unit spacesuit was worn by astronauts in space.

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