STS-32

The primary objectives of the mission were to deploy the Syncom IV-F5 defense communications satellite (also known as Leasat 5),[2] and to retrieve NASA's Long Duration Exposure Facility (LDEF), whose retrieval had been delayed for 4​1⁄2 years by scheduling changes and the Challenger disaster of 1986. Syncom IV-F5 was deployed on the second flight day, and a third-stage Minuteman solid perigee kick motor propelled it into a geosynchronous orbit. Dunbar retrieved the LDEF on the fourth day of the flight using the shuttle's Remote Manipulator System.