Shuttle Achieves 25 Years of Flight

Twenty-five years ago, a new spacecraft, unlike anything that had departed the Earth before, roared off a Florida launch pad, and space flight, as we knew it, changed forever.

Named Columbia, after the first American sailing ship to circumnavigate the globe, this new vehicle represented the culmination of decades of concept development and research, and years of design, engineering, and construction. It was the first vehicle ever that could launch like a rocket, orbit like a satellite and glide home on a conventional runway, before being refurbished for its next voyage.

Today the Space Shuttle fleet is a trio of veterans – Discovery, Atlantis and Endeavour. Since STS-1, all five Orbiters – including Challenger and Columbia – have cumulated a total of 30,355 hours, or almost 3.5 years, in space during 114 missions. They have traveled a total of 423,180,447 miles and made 16,531 orbits of the Earth.

The Space Shuttle Orbiters have served as the platforms for some of the most remarkable feats in flight history. The on-orbit retrieval and repair of satellites. The deployment of planetary probes to Venus, Jupiter and the sun. The deployment and servicing of the Hubble Space Telescope. The three-man spacewalk during which astronauts captured an errant satellite with their hands. Research that has expanded our knowledge of our planet and the human body. The construction of a new permanent orbiting outpost.

More than 60 satellites have been deployed from the Shuttle Orbiters, and a total of 77 spacewalks, lasting a cumulative 491 hours, have been staged from their airlocks.

“The missions of the Space Shuttle have aggressively exploited the diverse, unique capabilities of the system with each mission, laying the groundwork for missions to come, and with each flight serving as a stepping stone for expanding both human reach and influence beyond our planet,” said USA’s Space Shuttle Program Manager Howard DeCastro.

There has been tragedy. The losses of the STS-51L crew on Challenger and the STS-107 crew on Columbia shook the program and its people, forcing the NASA/Industry team to take a hard, self-critical look at its approach to managing and flying the complex system. Both tragedies served as harsh reminders that safety can never be taken for granted, and in each case the Shuttle team used the lessons learned to return to flight safer than ever before.

USA has played a key role in the Shuttle Program for 10 years, but more than 2,000 current employees – 20 percent of the present workforce – were employed in the Space Program in Florida or Huntsville or Houston when Columbia made her maiden voyage in 1981.

“More than a generation of flight controllers, engineers, trainers, inspectors, technicians and support staff now at USA came of age during the Shuttle era,” said President and Chief Executive Officer Mike McCulley. “They have grown in expertise and skill. They have come to know the Orbiters as individuals, and they have developed talents for planning and executing the most challenging of missions. They have tremendous pride in the facilities and equipment for which they are responsible.

“It is because of this talent and these skills and an unmatched dedication to human space exploration that the Shuttle Program is near to fulfilling its intended purpose of establishing an orbiting outpost from which a new era of space exploration will be launched.”

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Shuttle Achieves 25 Years of Flight

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