ter the STS-51-G mission, Lucid was assigned to Capsule Communicator (CAPCOM) duty. She served as the CAPCOM for the STS-51-J mission in October 1985,[42] the STS-61-A mission in November 1985,[43] STS-61-B mission in November and December 1985,[44] and the STS-61-C mission in January 1986.[45] The January 1986 Space Shuttle Challenger disaster later that month halted Space Shuttle operations for 32 months while NASA conducted investigations and remediation. Flight crews were stood down. One consequence of the disaster was the Galileo project, an unmanned probe to Jupiter, which lost both its launch window and its ride due to the cancelation of the Shuttle-Centaur project.[46] On November 30, 1988, NASA announced that Galileo would be deployed by the Space Shuttle Atlantis on the STS-34 mission, which was scheduled for October 12, 1989. The mission was commanded by Donald E. Williams, with pilot Michael J. McCulley and Lucid, Ellen S. Baker and Franklin Chang-Diaz as mission specialists.[47] The launch was delayed for five days due to a faulty Space Shuttle main engine controller, and then for an additional day due to bad weather. Atlantis lifted off from KSC on October 18.[48] As the lead mission specialist, Lucid was primarily responsible for the Galileo spacecraft,[49] and initiated its deployment by pressing a button to separate Galileo from Atlantis.[50] Galileo was successfully deployed six and a half hours into the flight using the Inertial Upper Stage (IUS). As this was much less powerful than the Shuttle-Centaur upper stage, Galileo had to employ a gravity assist from Venus and two from Earth, and it took six ye
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