Columbia launching on mission STS-80. The space shuttle Columbia launched from the Kennedy Space Center, Florida, USA, on 19 November 1996, at the start of mission STS-80. There were five NASA astronauts on board. During the mission, they deployed two spacecraft, conducted spacewalks, and carried out microgravity research on board the space shuttle. The two spacecraft on the shuttle were the Wake Shield Facility-3 (WSF-3) and the Orbiting and Retrievable Far and Extreme Ultraviolet Spectrometer-Shuttle Pallet Satellite II (ORFEUS-SPAS II). The crew were Kenneth D. Cockrell, Kent V. Rominger, Tamara E. Jernigan, Story Mugrave, and Thomas D. Jones.