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The longest orbital flight of the Shuttle was STS-80 at 17 days 15 hours, while the shortest flight was STS-51-L at one minute 13 seconds when the Space Shuttle Challenger broke apart during launch. The cold morning shrunk an O-Ring on the right Solid Rocket Booster causing the external fuel tank to explode.
Enterprise's first test flight was on February 18, 1977, only five years after the Shuttle program was formally initiated; leading to the launch of the first space-worthy shuttle Columbia on April 12, 1981, on STS-1.
In 2007, NASA engineers devised a solution so Space Shuttle flights could cross the year-end boundary. [30] Space Shuttle missions typically brought a portable general support computer (PGSC) that could integrate with the orbiter vehicle's computers and communication suite, as well as monitor scientific and payload data.
The space shuttle flight program came to a close on July 21, 2011, when Atlantis landed at Kennedy Space Center in Florida. ... Challenger space shuttle tragedy happened 39 years ago. Show ...
The Space Shuttle Columbia was lost as it returned from a two-week mission when previously detected damage to the shuttle's thermal protection system (TPS) resulted in the spacecraft breaking apart during reentry at an altitude of just under 65 km and a speed of about Mach 19. Investigation revealed that a piece of foam insulation had fallen ...
Shuttle Carrier Aircraft ferry flights generally originated at Edwards Air Force Base in California or on one occasion White Sands Space Harbor in New Mexico following missions which landed there, especially in the early days of the Space Shuttle program or when weather at the Shuttle Landing Facility (SLF) at Kennedy Space Center prevented ...
These were atmospheric only, non-spaceflight tests from a Boeing 747 Shuttle Carrier Aircraft, both with the orbiter attached and for a series of drop-test flights. ** Note 2: The durations listed count only the orbiter free-flight time, and not total time aloft along with airborne time atop of the 747 SCA.
Space Shuttle Columbia (OV-102) was a Space Shuttle orbiter manufactured by Rockwell International and operated by NASA.Named after the first American ship to circumnavigate the globe, and the female personification of the United States, Columbia was the first of five Space Shuttle orbiters to fly in space, debuting the Space Shuttle launch vehicle on its maiden flight on April 12, 1981 and ...