The 15th space shuttle mission (51-C) is the first all-military flight. The Discovery crew of Navy Capt. Thomas K. Mattingly (mission commander), Air Force Lt. Col. Loren J. Shriver (pilot), and Air Force mission specialists Lt. Col. Ellison S. Onizuka and Maj. Gary E. Payton, along with Marine Lt. Col. James F. Buchli, deploy a classified payload, believed to be a signals intelligence satellite.
The Air Force is on track to reach its annual goal of graduating 1,500 new pilots that had proved elusive to this point, one year after the service launched a sweeping overhaul of its undergraduate pilot training program, Air Education and Training Command said Sept. 14.
