Launch from Cape Canaveral (KSC); landing on Edwards AFB.

Successful deploying of communications satellites Anik C-2/Telesat-7 (Canada) and Palapa B-1 (Indonesia) on the first both flight days. First deployment and retrieval exercise with the Shuttle Pallet Satellite SPAS-01 (Germany) including 10 experiments.

Sally Ride became first American woman to fly in space. First mission with a crew of five persons.

This mission also carried seven GAS canisters which contained a wide variety of experiments, as well as the OSTA-2 payload, a joint U.S.-West German scientific pallet payload. Among these experiments was an experiment with ants. Electrophoresis experiments and Monodisperse Latex Reactor (MLR) experiments were also performed.

STS-7 was scheduled to make the first Shuttle landing at the Kennedy Space Center's Shuttle Landing Facility, but bad weather conditions forced a change again to Edwards AFB.