OTD…Oct. 18 and STS-34 and STS-58

#OTD in 1989…Columbia launched with a classified communications satellite for the Defense Department

#OTD…The first launch of Challenger in 1983 and Columbia’s shortened Spacelab mission in 1997

#OTD in 1994…Discovery launched to develop new techniques for monitoring Earth’s environment from space…and in 2006…Construction of the space station resumed as Atlantis delivered a power-generating truss