STS-3 Columbia - Dramatic 3rd Space Shuttle Landing

With Jack Lousma commanding, STS-3 was NASA's third Space Shuttle mission, and was the third mission for the Space Shuttle Columbia. It launched on 22 March 1982, and landed eight days later on 30 March. The mission involved extensive orbital endurance testing of the Columbia itself, as well as numerous scientific experiments. STS-3 was the first shuttle launch with an unpainted external tank, and the only mission to land at the White Sands Space Harbor near Las Cruces, New Mexico. The shuttle was forced to land at White Sands due to flooding at its originally planned landing site, Edwards Air Force Base.

Touchdown finally took place at 16:04:46 UTC on 30 March 1982, at Northrop Strip. STS-3 was the only shuttle mission to land at White Sands. The final approach was in part flown by the shuttle's autopilot, but the autoland program was not complete, and it was not meant to be an automatic landing. Rolling out on final, the autopilot was reengaged, and responded by closing the speedbrakes (despite the orbiter being on profile), resulting in increased speed. The autopilot then commanded full speedbrakes, and kept oscillating like this for some time. Lousma left the autopilot activated in order to gather data on its behavior, but disconnected it again at a very late stage to touch down manually. The landing was also one of the more dramatic of the program, with the landing gear deploying at an altitude of 150 feet (46 m) at a speed of 275 knots (509 km/h) and locking just five seconds before touchdown, and the nose being raised again right before nose-gear touchdown. Lousma did not know that the autoland system was still partially engaged until Fullerton warned him, causing Lousma to pitch up; Charles Bolden, who had worked on the autoland system early in his astronaut career, stated in 2004 that "he saved the vehicle" by doing so.

If you like f-sim Space Shuttle, you'll appreciate this video.