Failure and Recovery: STS-83, Columbia and the Fastest Shuttle Reflight

Article

“Failure and Recovery: STS-83, Columbia and the Fastest Shuttle Reflight” by Samuel McKee
Published in Quest Volume: 33 #3 (2026)

Abstract

The STS-83 flew in April 1997 for only 3 days, 23 hours, 13 minutes, 38 seconds (scheduled to last 15 days, 16 hours, 36 minutes) with the first and only in-space abort of the Space Shuttle. Apart from STS-2, this was the only Shuttle mission terminated. Because of a fuel-cell anomaly, it undertook immediate return to Earth. In what was also a first, the Space Shuttle Columbia was refurbished to fly the same crew on the same mission in only three months. This article outlines the Shuttle program’s second major inflight abort, the engineering and management decisions behind it, and NASA’s unprecedented recovery culminating in STS-94.

Citation

McKee, Samuel. “Failure and Recovery: STS-83, Columbia and the Fastest Shuttle Reflight.” Quest: The History of Spaceflight Quarterly 33, no. 3 (2026): 3-9.