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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.
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 ...
In 2007, NASA engineers devised a solution so Space Shuttle flights could cross the year-end boundary. [27] 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 first space rendezvous was accomplished by Gemini 6A and Gemini 7 in 1965.. Records and firsts in spaceflight are broadly divided into crewed and uncrewed categories. Records involving animal spaceflight have also been noted in earlier experimental flights, typically to establish the feasibility of sending humans to outer space.
But like all good things, this era came to an end 30 years later when Space Shuttle Atlantis returned to Earth on July 21, 2011, marking the end of the final flight of the space shuttle program ...
This is a list of persons who served aboard Space Shuttle crews, arranged in chronological order by Space Shuttle missions. Abbreviations: PC = Payload Commander; MSE = USAF Manned Spaceflight Engineer; Mir = Launched to be part of the crew of the Mir Space Station; ISS = Launched to be part of the crew of the International Space Station.
The 2024 list and lists for subsequent years contain planned launches, but statistics only include past launches. For the purpose of these lists, a spaceflight is defined as any flight that crosses the Kármán line, the FAI-recognized edge of space, which is 100 kilometres (62 miles) above mean sea level (AMSL). The timeline contains all ...