Space Shuttle - NASA Starting with Columbia and continuing with Challenger, Discovery, Atlantis and Endeavour, the spacecraft has carried people into orbit repeatedly, launched, recovered and repaired satellites, conducted cutting-edge research and built the largest structure in space, the International Space Station
Space Shuttle - Wikipedia The Space Shuttle is a retired, partially reusable low Earth orbital spacecraft system operated from 1981 to 2011 by the U S National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) as part of the Space Shuttle program
Space shuttle | Names, Challenger, Columbia, Definition, Facts . . . Space shuttle, partially reusable rocket-launched vehicle designed to go into orbit around Earth, to transport people and cargo to and from orbiting spacecraft, and to glide to a runway landing on its return to Earth’s surface It was developed by NASA and made 135 spaceflights between 1981 and 2011
All NASA Space Shuttle Locations How to Visit Them Below you’ll find a guide to each of the Space Shuttle locations around the U S ; today you can visit five shuttles, three of which flew to space during the almost 30 years of NASA’s Shuttle program
Space Shuttle program - National Air and Space Museum It was the fourth human spaceflight program carried out by the United States and NASA The Space Shuttle, officially known as the Space Transportation System (STS), was the first reusable spacecraft to carry humans into orbit
40th anniversary lessons from the NASA Challenger disaster : NPR Forty years after the Challenger disaster, NPR explores the engineers' last-minute efforts to stop the launch, their decades of guilt and the vital lessons that remain critical for NASA today
Space Shuttle Endeavour | The California Science Center Five different orbiters flew into space as part of the program— Columbia, Challenger, Discovery, Atlantis and Endeavour —for a total of 135 missions Counted together, the space shuttles have carried 355 people, flown over 500 million miles, and spent over 1,300 days in orbit
Why The NASA Space Shuttle Retirement Still Hurts Even in 2026 Whether the U S retired the Space Shuttle program too soon in 2011 is debated, with arguments highlighting both the loss of capabilities and the urgent need to move past an expensive, aging system