LowEarth

Space Shuttle missions

1981STS-1 (Columbia)The maiden flight of the Space Shuttle — Columbia’s 37-orbit shakedown, and the first orbital vehicle to glide to a runway landing.
1981STS-2 (Columbia)The first reflight of a spacecraft in history — Columbia returned to orbit just over six months after STS-1, and tested the Canadarm for the first time.
1982STS-3 (Columbia)The third test flight — an eight-day science mission that made the only Shuttle landing in history at White Sands, after rain flooded the Edwards lakebed.
1982STS-4 (Columbia)The fourth and final Space Shuttle test flight — after which the system was declared operational, with President Reagan on hand for the landing.
1982STS-5 (Columbia)The first operational Space Shuttle mission — Columbia delivered two commercial communications satellites, opening the program’s working era.
1983STS-6 (Challenger)Challenger’s debut — the first Shuttle spacewalk and the deployment of the first Tracking and Data Relay Satellite.
1983STS-7 (Challenger)Sally Ride becomes the first American woman in space, on a flight that deployed two communications satellites and a free-flying science platform.
1983STS-8 (Challenger)The first night launch and landing of the Shuttle — and the flight on which Guion Bluford became the first African American in space.
1983STS-9 (Columbia / Spacelab 1)The first flight of Spacelab, Europe’s reusable laboratory — and the first six-person crew, including the first ESA astronaut, Ulf Merbold.
1984STS-41-B (Challenger)Bruce McCandless flies untethered, hundreds of feet from Challenger, on the Manned Maneuvering Unit — the first human satellite.
1984STS-41-C (Challenger / Solar Max)The first on-orbit satellite repair — the crew captured the ailing Solar Max observatory, fixed it, and released it back to work.
1984STS-41-D (Discovery)Discovery’s debut — a record three-satellite deployment flight that followed the program’s first on-pad engine shutdown and abort.
1984STS-41-G (Challenger)A flight of firsts — the first crew with two women, Kathryn Sullivan’s spacewalk (the first by an American woman), and the first Canadian in space.
1984STS-51-A (Discovery)A salvage mission like no other — the crew deployed two satellites and then hand-captured two stranded ones with jetpacks, bringing them home in the payload bay.
1985STS-51-C (Discovery)The first fully classified, dedicated Department of Defense Shuttle mission — its payload and orbit secret at the time.
1985STS-51-D (Discovery)Carried the first sitting member of Congress, Senator Jake Garn — and improvised a “flyswatter” on the robotic arm to try to activate a stranded satellite.
1985STS-51-B (Challenger / Spacelab-3)The Spacelab-3 mission — a week of materials and fluid-physics research, and the first to carry two squirrel monkeys and two dozen rats into orbit.
1985STS-51-G (Discovery)A multinational flight carrying the first Arab, Muslim and royal astronaut — Prince Sultan bin Salman Al Saud — alongside a French spationaut, deploying satellites for three nations.
1985STS-51-F (Challenger / Spacelab-2)The Spacelab-2 solar/astrophysics mission — and the only flight to perform an “abort to orbit” after a main engine shut down during ascent.
1985STS-51-I (Discovery)A second satellite-rescue spectacular — astronauts hand-captured the stranded Leasat F3, rewired it in orbit, and sent it back to work.
1985STS-51-J (Atlantis)The maiden flight of Atlantis — a classified Department of Defense mission that deployed military communications satellites.
1985STS-61-A (Challenger / Spacelab D-1)The German-funded Spacelab D-1 science mission — and the largest crew ever launched on a single spacecraft, eight astronauts including three Europeans.
1985STS-61-B (Atlantis)Deployed three satellites and ran the EASE/ACCESS spacewalks — the first hands-on experiments in assembling large structures in orbit, prefiguring station construction.
1986STS-61-C (Columbia)The flight immediately before Challenger — carrying Congressman Bill Nelson (a future NASA Administrator), it landed just ten days before the disaster grounded the fleet.
1986STS-51-L (Challenger)The Challenger disaster. Seventy-three seconds after liftoff, a booster O-ring failure destroyed the orbiter, killing all seven aboard — including teacher Christa McAuliffe — and grounding the fleet for nearly three years.
1988STS-26 (Discovery / Return to Flight)Return to Flight — the cautious first mission after Challenger, with a redesigned booster, that restored the program after 32 months on the ground.
1988STS-27 (Atlantis)A classified DoD flight that nearly became a disaster — ascent debris gouged the heat shield, and the crew rode out a tense reentry that foreshadowed the Columbia tragedy.
1989STS-29 (Discovery)Deployed the fourth Tracking and Data Relay Satellite, expanding the orbital communications network that links the Shuttle and stations to the ground.
1989STS-30 (Atlantis / Magellan)The Shuttle’s first planetary mission — Atlantis released the Magellan probe on its way to map the cloud-covered surface of Venus by radar.
1989STS-28 (Columbia)A classified Department of Defense flight — Columbia’s return to space after the Challenger stand-down, deploying a military relay satellite.
1989STS-34 (Atlantis / Galileo)Atlantis launched Galileo on its six-year journey to Jupiter — the orbiter and atmospheric probe that would revolutionize our understanding of the giant planet.
1989STS-33 (Discovery)A classified DoD mission commanded by Frederick Gregory — the first African American to command a spaceflight.
1990STS-32 (Columbia / LDEF)Retrieved the bus-sized Long Duration Exposure Facility after 5.7 years in orbit — a trove of materials-science data — on what was then the longest Shuttle flight.
1990STS-36 (Atlantis)A classified Department of Defense flight that reached the steepest orbit in Shuttle history — 62° inclination — to deploy a secret reconnaissance satellite.
1990STS-31 — Hubble DeploymentDiscovery carried the Hubble Space Telescope to a record-high orbit and released it — beginning the most productive observatory in the history of astronomy.
1990STS-41 (Discovery / Ulysses)Launched the Ulysses probe on a trip to Jupiter and back over the Sun’s poles — accelerated to the highest speed of any spacecraft yet sent from Earth.
1990STS-38 (Atlantis)A classified Department of Defense mission — and the first Shuttle landing at the Kennedy Space Center in over five years.
1990STS-35 (Columbia / ASTRO-1)A dedicated astronomy mission — the ASTRO-1 observatory surveyed the ultraviolet sky from the payload bay, run around the clock by an astronomer crew.
1991STS-37 (Atlantis / Compton GRO)Atlantis deployed the Compton Gamma Ray Observatory — the second of NASA’s Great Observatories — after a spacewalk freed its jammed antenna.
1991STS-39 (Discovery)A rare unclassified Department of Defense mission — a round-the-clock study of the upper atmosphere and rocket-plume signatures from a deployable platform.
1991STS-40 (Columbia / SLS-1)The first Spacelab mission devoted entirely to life sciences — studying how the human body adapts to weightlessness, with the crew as the subjects.
1991STS-43 (Atlantis)Deployed the fifth Tracking and Data Relay Satellite and ran a slate of materials and life-science experiments on a nine-day flight.
1991STS-48 (Discovery / UARS)Deployed the Upper Atmosphere Research Satellite — a landmark mission for studying the ozone layer and the chemistry of Earth’s upper atmosphere.
1991STS-44 (Atlantis)Deployed a Defense Support Program early-warning satellite — part of the constellation that watches for missile launches from geostationary orbit.
1992STS-42 (Discovery / IML-1)The first International Microgravity Laboratory — a multinational science mission, and the spaceflight of Roberta Bondar, the first Canadian woman in space.
1992STS-45 (Atlantis / ATLAS-1)The first ATLAS mission — twelve instruments measuring the Sun’s energy output and the chemistry of the middle atmosphere and ozone layer.
1992STS-49 (Endeavour / Intelsat rescue)Endeavour’s debut — a dramatic rescue of the stranded Intelsat VI satellite that required the only three-person spacewalk in history to grab it by hand.
1992STS-50 (Columbia / USML-1)The first US Microgravity Laboratory mission — and the debut of the Extended Duration Orbiter hardware that let the Shuttle fly two-week research flights.
1992STS-46 (Atlantis / Tethered Satellite)Deployed a European science platform and attempted the Tethered Satellite experiment — reeling a satellite out on a 20 km wire to generate power, until the tether jammed.
1992STS-47 (Endeavour / Spacelab-J)The Japanese Spacelab-J mission — and a milestone flight carrying Mae Jemison, the first African American woman in space, and the first married couple to fly together.
1992STS-52 (Columbia / LAGEOS-2)Deployed the LAGEOS-2 laser-ranging satellite — a dense brass sphere used to measure continental drift to the millimetre — with the first Canadian payload specialist aboard.
1992STS-53 (Discovery)The last Space Shuttle mission dedicated to the Department of Defense — deploying a classified satellite before the program turned fully to science and station-building.
1993STS-54 (Endeavour)Deployed the sixth Tracking and Data Relay Satellite and flew an X-ray astronomy detector — with a spacewalk rehearsing station-assembly techniques.
1993STS-56 (Discovery / ATLAS-2)The second ATLAS atmospheric-chemistry mission — measuring the Sun’s output and the ozone layer, with a free-flying solar observatory deployed and recovered.
1993STS-55 (Columbia / Spacelab D-2)The German-led Spacelab D-2 mission — a ten-day run of microgravity and life-science experiments, following a dramatic pad-abort earlier that year.
1993STS-57 (Endeavour)The first flight of the commercial SpaceHab research module — and the retrieval of Europe’s EURECA science platform after a year in orbit.
1993STS-51 (Discovery)Deployed an advanced communications satellite and a free-flying ultraviolet telescope — and made the first Space Shuttle night landing at the Kennedy Space Center.
1993STS-58 (Columbia / SLS-2)The second dedicated life-sciences Spacelab — two weeks of detailed studies of how the heart, muscles and nervous system adapt to weightlessness.
1993STS-61 (Endeavour / Hubble Servicing 1)The mission that saved Hubble — five marathon spacewalks installed corrective optics that fixed the telescope’s blurry vision and rescued its reputation.
1994STS-60 (Discovery)The first flight of a Russian cosmonaut aboard a US Shuttle — Sergei Krikalev’s mission opened the cooperation that would build the International Space Station.
1994STS-62 (Columbia / USMP-2)A two-week US Microgravity Payload mission — materials-science and crystal-growth experiments run in the quietest microgravity the Shuttle could provide.
1994STS-59 (Endeavour / SRL-1)The first Space Radar Laboratory — imaging Earth’s land, oceans and ecosystems with multi-frequency radar, a forerunner of the SRTM topography mission.
1994STS-65 (Columbia / IML-2)The second International Microgravity Laboratory — then the longest Shuttle flight, carrying Chiaki Mukai, the first Japanese woman in space.
1994STS-64 (Discovery / LITE & SAFER)Flew the first space lidar to probe the atmosphere — and saw the first untethered spacewalk in a decade, testing the SAFER rescue jetpack used on the ISS today.
1994STS-68 (Endeavour / SRL-2)The second Space Radar Laboratory — re-imaging the same sites as STS-59 months later to track seasonal and environmental change from orbit.
1994STS-66 (Atlantis / ATLAS-3)The third ATLAS atmospheric mission — tracking the seasonal recovery of the ozone layer and the energy budget that drives Earth’s climate.
1995STS-63 (Discovery / near-Mir)A dress rehearsal for the Shuttle-Mir program — Discovery closed to 11 metres of Mir, with Eileen Collins as the first woman to pilot a Shuttle.
1995STS-67 (Endeavour / ASTRO-2)A round-the-clock ultraviolet astronomy mission — then the longest Shuttle flight — that pioneered live science outreach with classrooms over the internet.
1995STS-71 (Atlantis / first Mir docking)The first docking of a Space Shuttle with Russia’s Mir station — the start of the partnership that would lead to the International Space Station.
1995STS-70 (Discovery)Deployed the final first-generation TDRS communications satellite — and is best remembered for the woodpeckers that pecked the fuel tank and delayed the launch.
1995STS-69 (Endeavour / Wake Shield)Deployed and retrieved two free-flying platforms — one growing ultra-pure semiconductor films in the vacuum of its own orbital wake — the first “two free-flyer” flight.
1995STS-73 (Columbia / USML-2)The second US Microgravity Laboratory — a 16-day run of fluid-physics, combustion and protein-crystal experiments in the orbiting lab.
1995STS-74 (Atlantis / second Mir docking)The second Shuttle-Mir docking — Atlantis attached a permanent docking module to the station, easing future linkups.
1996STS-72 (Endeavour)Retrieved Japan’s free-flying Space Flyer Unit after ten months in orbit — and ran spacewalks rehearsing techniques for the coming space station.
1996STS-75 (Columbia / Tethered Satellite reflight)The Tethered Satellite reflight — this time the wire reeled out nearly 20 km and generated thousands of volts, proving the concept, before snapping and sending the satellite free.
1996STS-76 (Atlantis / Mir)Delivered Shannon Lucid to Mir for a record-setting 188-day stay — and featured the first spacewalk conducted around the joined Shuttle-Mir complex.
1996STS-77 (Endeavour)A commercial-research flight that tested a giant inflatable antenna — a lightweight way to deploy large structures in space.
1996STS-78 (Columbia / LMS)The Life and Microgravity Spacelab — then the longest Shuttle flight, a 17-day rehearsal for the kind of sustained research the ISS would later host.
1996STS-79 (Atlantis / Mir)The first Shuttle-Mir crew rotation — Atlantis swapped John Blaha aboard the station for Shannon Lucid, ending her record 188-day US endurance flight.
1996STS-80 (Columbia)The longest Space Shuttle mission ever flown — 17.5 days deploying and retrieving free-flying science platforms, and Story Musgrave’s record-setting final flight.
1997STS-81 (Atlantis / Mir)A Shuttle-Mir crew rotation that ferried a record load of supplies and water to the station and swapped Jerry Linenger for John Blaha.
1997STS-82 (Discovery / Hubble Servicing 2)The second Hubble servicing mission — five spacewalks upgraded the telescope with new spectrographs that extended its reach into the infrared and ultraviolet.
1997STS-83 (Columbia / MSL-1)The Microgravity Science Lab cut short — a fuel-cell fault forced an early landing, and NASA reflew the entire mission and crew as STS-94.
1997STS-84 (Atlantis / Mir)A Shuttle-Mir crew rotation — Atlantis delivered Michael Foale to the station and brought Jerry Linenger home after four months aboard.
1997STS-94 (Columbia / MSL-1 reflight)The rare full reflight — after a fuel cell cut STS-83 short, NASA flew the identical orbiter, crew and Microgravity Science Lab again to finish the research.
1997STS-85 (Discovery)Deployed and retrieved the German CRISTA-SPAS observatory to map trace gases in the middle atmosphere — and tested robotics bound for the space station.
1997STS-86 (Atlantis / Mir)A Shuttle-Mir docking that delivered David Wolf to the station and staged the first joint US-Russian spacewalk — cooperation that paved the way to the ISS.
1997STS-87 (Columbia)A microgravity-science flight that marked the first spaceflight of Kalpana Chawla and the first Japanese spacewalk — the crew hand-recaptured a spun-up free-flyer.
1998STS-89 (Endeavour / Mir)The eighth Shuttle-Mir docking — delivering Andy Thomas for the final US long-duration stay aboard Mir as the program wound toward the ISS.
1998STS-90 (Columbia / Neurolab)Neurolab — the last and most specialized Spacelab mission, dedicated to how the brain and nervous system adapt to weightlessness, closing out the program.
1998STS-91 (Discovery / final Mir docking)The ninth and final Shuttle-Mir docking — closing the program that taught NASA and Russia to work together before building the ISS.
1998STS-95 (Discovery / John Glenn returns)John Glenn, the first American to orbit Earth, returns to space at 77 as a payload specialist studying aging — 36 years after Friendship 7.
1998STS-88 (Endeavour / first ISS assembly)The first ISS assembly flight — Endeavour mated the US Unity node to Russia’s Zarya, joining the first two pieces of the International Space Station.
1999STS-96 (Discovery / first ISS docking)The first Space Shuttle docking to the International Space Station — a resupply run to the empty Zarya-Unity core, readying it for its first long-term crew.
1999STS-93 (Columbia / Chandra)Eileen Collins commands the deployment of the Chandra X-ray Observatory — the first woman to command a Shuttle, launching one of NASA’s Great Observatories.
1999STS-103 (Discovery / Hubble Servicing 3A)An emergency call-up to save Hubble after gyroscope failures left it unable to point — three spacewalks restored the telescope just before the new millennium.
2000STS-99 (Endeavour / SRTM)The Shuttle Radar Topography Mission — using a 60-metre mast and dual radar antennas to map nearly all of Earth’s land surface in 3D, the most complete topographic dataset of its time.
2000STS-101 (Atlantis / ISS)A maintenance call on the still-uncrewed ISS — reboosting its orbit and replacing aging components to ready Zarya and Unity for their first residents.
2000STS-106 (Atlantis / ISS)Outfitted the brand-new Zvezda service module with supplies and gear — the final fit-out before Expedition 1 moved aboard the ISS for good.
2000STS-92 (Discovery / ISS assembly)The 100th Shuttle flight — installing the Z1 truss and a docking adapter to ready the young ISS for its first resident crew, weeks later.
2000STS-97 (Endeavour / ISS P6 arrays)Delivered the P6 truss and the station’s first big solar arrays — instantly making the young ISS the brightest human-made object in the night sky.
2001STS-98 (Atlantis / Destiny lab)Delivered and installed the Destiny laboratory — the US research module that became the command-and-control heart of the International Space Station.
2001STS-102 (Discovery / first ISS crew rotation)The first rotation of a resident ISS crew — bringing Expedition 1 home and Expedition 2 up, with the Italian-built Leonardo module ferrying supplies.
2001STS-100 (Endeavour / Canadarm2)Installed Canadarm2, the station’s 17-metre robotic arm — and gave Canada’s Chris Hadfield the first Canadian spacewalk.
2001STS-104 (Atlantis / Quest airlock)Delivered the Quest airlock — the module that let the ISS crew conduct spacewalks independently, in either American or Russian spacesuits.
2001STS-105 (Discovery / ISS crew rotation)Rotated the ISS resident crews — bringing Expedition 2 home and Expedition 3 up — with a Leonardo module full of supplies.
2001STS-108 (Endeavour / ISS crew rotation)An ISS crew-rotation and resupply flight — swapping the Expedition 3 and 4 crews and ferrying a Leonardo module of cargo to the growing station.
2002STS-109 (Columbia / Hubble Servicing 3B)The fourth Hubble servicing mission — and Columbia’s last successful flight — installed the Advanced Camera for Surveys, dramatically sharpening the telescope’s eye.
2002STS-110 (Atlantis / ISS S0 truss)Installed the S0 truss — the central spine of the ISS backbone — on the flight that made Jerry Ross the first seven-time space flier.
2002STS-111 (Endeavour / ISS)Delivered the Mobile Base System — the platform that lets Canadarm2 travel the length of the truss — and swapped the ISS resident crew.
2002STS-112 (Atlantis / ISS S1 truss)Added the S1 truss segment and its cooling radiators to the starboard backbone of the ISS, extending the structure that powers and cools the station.
2002STS-113 (Endeavour / ISS P1 truss)Added the P1 truss segment — and was the last Shuttle flight to reach the ISS before the Columbia accident grounded the fleet for 2½ years.
2003STS-107 (Columbia)A 16-day science mission that ended in tragedy: ascent debris had breached Columbia’s wing, and the orbiter broke apart during reentry, killing all seven aboard and ending the Shuttle’s second era.
2005STS-114 (Discovery / Return to Flight)Return to Flight after Columbia — and the first time an astronaut repaired an orbiter’s heat shield in space, plucking gap fillers from beneath Discovery.
2006STS-121 (Discovery / Return to Flight 2)The second Return to Flight — a final test of the post-Columbia safety fixes that cleared the Shuttle to resume station assembly, and restored the ISS to a three-person crew.
2006STS-115 (Atlantis / ISS P3-P4 arrays)Restarted ISS assembly after the Columbia stand-down — adding the P3/P4 truss and a second pair of giant solar arrays to power the station’s expansion.
2006STS-116 (Discovery / ISS P5 & rewire)Added the P5 spacer and rewired the ISS to its permanent electrical configuration — a complex series of spacewalks to switch the station onto its new power channels.
2007STS-117 (Atlantis / S3-S4 truss)Installed the S3/S4 truss and a new pair of solar-array wings — a major step in powering up the maturing International Space Station.
2007STS-118 (Endeavour)Barbara Morgan, Christa McAuliffe’s backup on the Teacher-in-Space program, finally reached orbit 21 years after Challenger — on an ISS assembly flight.
2007STS-120 (Discovery / Harmony)Delivered the Harmony connecting node to the ISS — and featured a dramatic spacewalk to repair a torn solar array, with two women commanding spacecraft simultaneously for the first time.
2008STS-122 (Atlantis / Columbus)Delivered Europe’s Columbus laboratory to the ISS — the European Space Agency’s cornerstone research module.
2008STS-123 (Endeavour / Kibo & Dextre)The longest ISS Shuttle mission — delivering the first element of Japan’s Kibo laboratory and the dexterous Canadian robot “Dextre”.
2008STS-124 (Discovery / Kibo)Delivered the main pressurized module of Japan’s Kibo laboratory — the largest single room on the ISS — completing the heart of the Japanese segment.
2008STS-126 (Endeavour / ISS habitability)Outfitted the ISS to house six people — delivering extra sleeping quarters, a second toilet, a galley and the water-recycling system that turns urine into drinking water.
2009STS-119 (Discovery / ISS S6 arrays)Installed the fourth and final pair of solar arrays (S6) — completing the ISS truss and bringing the station to its full power-generating capacity.
2009STS-125 (Atlantis / final Hubble servicing)The fifth and final Hubble servicing mission — a risky flight to a high orbit away from the ISS that upgraded the telescope to its most powerful state.
2009STS-127 (Endeavour / Kibo complete)Finished Japan’s Kibo laboratory by adding its exposed “porch” — and briefly put a record thirteen people in orbit at once aboard the joined station and Shuttle.
2009STS-128 (Discovery / ISS)A resupply and crew-rotation flight — delivering science racks, crew quarters and the COLBERT treadmill, and swapping an ISS resident.
2009STS-129 (Atlantis / ISS spares)Stocked the ISS with large external spare parts — gyroscopes, tanks and pumps — laid up against the day the Shuttle could no longer carry them.
2010STS-130 (Endeavour / Cupola)Delivered the Tranquility node and the Cupola — the seven-windowed dome that became the station’s iconic window on the world.
2010STS-131 (Discovery / ISS resupply)A heavy resupply run that briefly put four women in orbit at once — delivering a Leonardo module of science racks, crew quarters and equipment.
2010STS-132 (Atlantis / ISS Rassvet)Delivered the Russian Rassvet module — a docking port and storage room for the Russian segment — on what was meant to be Atlantis’s final flight before it was recalled for STS-135.
2011STS-133 (Discovery / final flight)The last flight of Discovery — the fleet leader with 39 missions — delivering a permanent storage module and the Robonaut 2 humanoid to the ISS.
2011STS-134 (Endeavour / final flight)Endeavour’s farewell flight — delivering the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer, a particle physics detector hunting dark matter and antimatter from the ISS.
2011STS-135 (Atlantis / final Shuttle flight)The final flight of the Space Shuttle program — Atlantis delivered supplies to the ISS and rolled to a pre-dawn stop, closing 30 years of Shuttle spaceflight.