His three space shuttle flights included the first Challenger mission, which he piloted in April 1983 and from which the first extravehicular activity from a shuttle was conducted. He was also the commander of the first flight of Atlantis in October 1985. Bobko was assigned to the Manned Orbital Laboratory (MOL) programme in 1966. He became a NASA astronaut in 1969 when the MOL was terminated, and left NASA in 1989.