List of Space Shuttle missions

The Space Shuttle was a partially reusable low Earth orbital spacecraft system operated by the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). Its official program name was Space Transportation System, taken from a 1969 plan for a system of reusable spacecraft of which it was the only item funded for development. Operational missions launched numerous satellites (including the Hubble Space Telescope), conducted science experiments in orbit, and participated in construction and servicing of the International Space Station (ISS). The first of four orbital test flights occurred in 1981, leading to operational flights beginning in 1982.

From 1981 to 2011 a total of 135 missions were flown, launched from Kennedy Space Center (KSC) in Florida. During that time the fleet totaled 1,322 days, 19 hours, 21 minutes and 23 seconds of flight time. The longest orbital flight of the shuttle was STS-80 at 17 days 15 hours, while the shortest flight was STS-51-L at 1 minute 13 seconds, cut short when the space shuttle Challenger broke apart during launch. The shuttles docked with Russian space station Mir 9 times and visited the ISS 37 times. The highest altitude achieved by the shuttle was 350 miles when servicing the Hubble Space Telescope. The program flew a total of 355 people representing 16 countries. The Kennedy Space Center served as the landing site for 78 missions, while 54 missions landed at Edwards Air Force Base in California and 1 at White Sands, New Mexico.

Space Shuttle

The Space Shuttle was a partially reusable low Earth orbital spacecraft system operated by the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), as part of the Space Shuttle program. Its official program name was Space Transportation System (STS), taken from a 1969 plan for a system of reusable spacecraft of which it was the only item funded for development. The first of four orbital test flights occurred in 1981, leading to operational flights beginning in 1982. They were used on a total of 135 missions from 1981 to 2011, launched from the Kennedy Space Center (KSC) in Florida. Operational missions launched numerous satellites, interplanetary probes, and the Hubble Space Telescope (HST); conducted science experiments in orbit; and participated in construction and servicing of the International Space Station. The Shuttle fleet's total mission time was 1322 days, 19 hours, 21 minutes and 23 seconds.

Shuttle components included the Orbiter Vehicle (OV), a pair of recoverable solid rocket boosters (SRBs), and the expendable external tank (ET) containing liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen. The Shuttle was launched vertically, like a conventional rocket, with the two SRBs operating in parallel with the OV's three main engines, which were fueled from the ET. The SRBs were jettisoned before the vehicle reached orbit, and the ET was jettisoned just before orbit insertion, which used the orbiter's two Orbital Maneuvering System (OMS) engines. At the conclusion of the mission, the orbiter fired its OMS to de-orbit and re-enter the atmosphere. The orbiter then glided as a spaceplane to a runway landing, usually at the Shuttle Landing Facility of KSC or Rogers Dry Lake in Edwards Air Force Base, California. After landing at Edwards, the orbiter was flown back to the KSC on the Shuttle Carrier Aircraft, a specially modified Boeing 747.

Space

Space is the boundless three-dimensional extent in which objects and events have relative position and direction. Physical space is often conceived in three linear dimensions, although modern physicists usually consider it, with time, to be part of a boundless four-dimensional continuum known as spacetime. The concept of space is considered to be of fundamental importance to an understanding of the physical universe. However, disagreement continues between philosophers over whether it is itself an entity, a relationship between entities, or part of a conceptual framework.

Space observatory

A space observatory is any instrument (such as a telescope) in outer space that is used for observation of distant planets, galaxies and other outer space objects. The first such space observatory was the Hubble Space Telescope launched in 1990. Space observatories avoid many of the problems of ground observatories, such as light pollution and the filtering and distortion of electromagnetic radiation (scintillation).

This category is distinct from other observatories located in space that are pointed toward Earth for the purpose of reconnaissance and other types of information gathering.

History

In 1946, American theoretical astrophysicist Lyman Spitzer was the first to conceive the idea of a telescope in outer space, a decade before the Soviet Union launched the first satellite, Sputnik 1.

Spitzer's proposal called for a large telescope that would not be hindered by Earth's atmosphere. After lobbying in the 1960s and 70s for such a system to be built, Spitzer's vision ultimately materialized into the Hubble Space Telescope, which was launched on April 24, 1990 by the Space Shuttle Discovery (STS-31).

Space station

A space station, also known as an orbital station or an orbital space station, is a spacecraft capable of supporting a crew, which is designed to remain in space (most commonly as an artificial satellite in low Earth orbit) for an extended period of time and for other spacecraft to dock. A space station is distinguished from other spacecraft used for human spaceflight by lack of major propulsion or landing systems. Instead, other vehicles transport people and cargo to and from the station. As of September 2014 two space stations are in orbit: the International Space Station, which is permanently manned, and China's Tiangong-1 (which successfully launched on September 29, 2011), which is unmanned most of the time. Previous stations include the Almaz and Salyut series, Skylab and most recently Mir.

Today's space stations are research platforms, used to study the effects of long-term space flight on the human body as well as to provide platforms for greater number and length of scientific studies than available on other space vehicles. Each crew member staying aboard the station for weeks or months, but rarely more than a year. Most of the time crew remain at station but its not necessary that crew should have to be stay at station. Since the ill-fated flight of Soyuz 11 to Salyut 1, all manned spaceflight duration records have been set aboard space stations. The duration record for a single spaceflight is 437.7 days, set by Valeriy Polyakov aboard Mir from 1994 to 1995. As of 2013, three astronauts have completed single missions of over a year, all aboard Mir.