Sally Ride, the first American woman in space, launched aboard shuttle Challenger at 7:33 a.m. on June 18, 1983 from pad 39A at Kennedy Space Center. Commander Bob Crippen, pilot Rick Hauck and mission specialists Ride, John Fabian and Norm Thagard deployed the commercial Anik C2 and Palapa B1 communications satellites. The Shuttle Pallet Satellite (SPAS-01) platform loaded with experiments was also released and then recovered using the robotic arm.