STS-3 Columbia White Sands Landing & Ferry Flight Photo — WSMR Provenance View Watchlist >
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Lot # Nasa86
System ID # 29274574
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STS-3 Columbia White Sands Landing & Ferry Flight Photo Composite — WSMR Provenance, 1982
A color photographic composite commemorating STS-3, the third flight of orbiter Columbia, assembled on Kodak photographic paper as a single presentation print. The sequence documents the mission's most New Mexico-specific chapter: Columbia's rollout landing at White Sands Space Harbor, the orbiter being craned onto the modified Boeing 747 Shuttle Carrier Aircraft, and the ferry flight home. A launch frame and the orbiter on the runway complete the arrangement. The center panel carries the mission insignia, the crew names — Col. Jack Lousma (Commander) and Col. C. Gordon Fullerton (Pilot) — and the printed date span "March 30, 82 to April 6, 82."
The flown mission itself ran March 22–30, 1982; the dates shown on the composite align with the post-landing recovery and ferry-flight return. STS-3 remains the only Space Shuttle mission in program history to land at White Sands, diverted from Edwards Air Force Base after rain left the California lakebed unusable. For Doña Ana County and the Las Cruces community, that singular event makes this the most regionally significant mission of the entire shuttle era.
Significance & Rarity
NASA press photographs from the Shuttle program are plentiful. Army documentation of the White Sands recovery and departure is not. This print's origin outside the NASA photo distribution system — printed on Kodak paper, bearing no agency stamp or press caption on the verso — marks it as an internal record rather than a release photograph. White Sands Space Harbor served as a shuttle landing site exactly once. STS-3's diversion there in March 1982 stands as a one-time event in a thirty-year program, tying the orbiter Columbia directly to southern New Mexico. For collectors focused on the Shuttle program, New Mexico space history, or White Sands Missile Range documentation, this represents a genuinely narrow category of surviving material.
Provenance
From the collection of a retired White Sands Missile Range Army employee, Las Cruces, New Mexico. Offered as part of a dedicated NASA specialty auction.
CONDITION
Excellent. Color saturation and image clarity are strong throughout. The verso shows only the Kodak paper watermark pattern, with no additional stamps or markings.
DIMENSIONS / SPECIFICATIONS
- Overall: 8 1/2" × 11"
- Format: Color photographic composite print on Kodak paper
- Mission: STS-3, Space Shuttle Columbia
- Crew: Col. Jack Lousma (Commander), Col. C. Gordon Fullerton (Pilot)
- Flown Mission Dates: March 22–30, 1982
