The flight lasted 7 days, 1 hour, 9 minutes and 31 seconds (169.1586 hours), and covered a total distance of in 112 complete orbits. The mission achieved all objectives except for the Air Force payload, but the SRBs were lost when their main parachutes failed, causing the empty casings to impact the ocean at high velocity and sink. This and STS-51-L were the only missions where the SRBs were not recovered. "Columbia" returned to KSC on 15 July.