NASA’s Columbia Space Shuttle was successfully launched from the Kennedy Space Center.
This was the shuttle’s third mission, STS-3, and its first with an unpainted external fuel tank. The mission’s primary objectives were to test the shuttle’s ability to hold up to the sun’s intense heat outside of Earth’s atmosphere and further test the shuttle’s external robotic arms. STS-3 was the only shuttle mission to land at the White Sands Space Harbor in New Mexico.