Three Astronauts Caught a Satellite by Hand

On May 13, 1992, three astronauts went outside the space shuttle Endeavour and did something nobody had planned. They reached out and caught a 4.5-ton satellite with their hands. It is still the only spacewalk ever made by three people at once.

A Satellite Nobody Could Use

Intelsat VI (F-3) was a communications satellite launched on a Titan rocket in March 1990. It never reached the orbit it was built for and was left stranded in an unusable one.

Two years later, Endeavour flew its very first mission, STS-49, which lifted off on May 7, 1992. Part of the job was to catch the stranded satellite and fit it with a new perigee kick motor so it could finally be sent where it belonged.

Two Tries, Two Failures

The plan was to attach a capture bar to the satellite from a position on the shuttle's robot arm. On May 10, Pierre Thuot and Richard Hieb spent 3 hours 43 minutes outside trying. The bar could be inserted but it would not hold the satellite.

The next day the two men went out again for an unscheduled second attempt. It had the same result.

Reach Out and Grab It

For the third spacewalk, NASA changed the plan. Thuot and Hieb were joined by Thomas Akers, and all three went outside together.

Commander Daniel Brandenstein flew Endeavour to within a few feet of the satellite. The three astronauts then captured it by hand, an unscheduled catch.

The spacewalk lasted 8 hours 29 minutes. At the time it was the longest ever made, and the record stood until the STS-102 mission in 2001. It was also the first spacewalk to involve three astronauts, and it remains the only one.

The Satellite Went to Work

With the satellite in hand, the crew fitted the new perigee kick motor and released it. The motor then fired to place Intelsat VI in geosynchronous orbit, where it could finally do its job.

The rest of the crew was pilot Kevin Chilton and mission specialists Bruce Melnick and Kathryn Thornton. Endeavour landed on May 16, 1992, nine days after it left the pad.