Space Shuttle

Space Shuttle

Discovery lifts off at the start of the STS-120 mission.
Function	Crewed orbital launch and reentry
Manufacturer	United Space Alliance Thiokol/Alliant Techsystems (SRBs) Lockheed Martin/Martin Marietta (ET) Boeing/Rockwell (orbiter)
Country of origin	United States
Project cost	US$211 billion (2012)
Cost per launch	US$450 million (2011)[1]
Size
Height	56.1 m (184 ft)
Diameter	8.7 m (29 ft)
Mass	2,030,000 kg (4,480,000 lb)
Stages	1.5[2]: 126, 140
Capacity
Payload to low Earth orbit (LEO) (204 km (127 mi))
Mass	27,500 kg (60,600 lb)
Payload to International Space Station (ISS) (407 km (253 mi))
Mass	16,050 kg (35,380 lb)
Payload to geostationary transfer orbit (GTO)
Mass	10,890 kg (24,010 lb) with Inertial Upper Stage[3]
Payload to geostationary orbit (GEO)
Mass	2,270 kg (5,000 lb) with Inertial Upper Stage[3]
Payload to Earth, returned
Mass	14,400 kg (31,700 lb)[4]
Launch history
Status	Retired
Launch sites	Kennedy Space Center, LC-39 Vandenberg Air Force Base (unused), SLC-6
Total launches	135
Success(es)	133[a]
Failure(s)	2 Challenger (launch failure, 7 fatalities) Columbia (re-entry failure, 7 fatalities)
First flight	12 April 1981
Last flight	21 July 2011
Boosters – Solid Rocket Boosters
No. boosters	2
Powered by	2 solid-fuel rocket motors
Maximum thrust	13,000 kN (3,000,000 lbf) each, sea level (2,650,000 liftoff)
Specific impulse	242 s (2.37 km/s)[5]
Burn time	124 seconds
Propellant	Solid (ammonium perchlorate composite propellant)
First stage – Orbiter + external tank
Powered by	3 RS-25 engines located on Orbiter
Maximum thrust	5,250 kN (1,180,000 lbf) total, sea level liftoff[6]
Specific impulse	455 s (4.46 km/s)
Burn time	480 seconds
Propellant	LH2 / LOX
Type of passengers/cargo	Tracking and data relay satellites Spacelab Hubble Space Telescope Galileo Magellan Ulysses Compton Gamma Ray Observatory Mir Docking Module Chandra X-ray Observatory ISS components
[edit on Wikidata]

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The Space Shuttle is a retired, partially reusable low Earth orbital spacecraft system operated from 1981 to 2011 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 where it was the only item funded for development.^[7]

The first (STS-1) of four orbital test flights occurred in 1981, leading to operational flights (STS-5) beginning in 1982. Five complete Space Shuttle orbiter vehicles were built and flown on a total of 135 missions from 1981 to 2011. They 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, participated in the Shuttle-Mir program with Russia, and participated in the construction and servicing of the International Space Station (ISS). The Space Shuttle fleet's total mission time was 1,323 days.^[8]

Space Shuttle components include the Orbiter Vehicle (OV) with three clustered Rocketdyne RS-25 main engines, a pair of recoverable solid rocket boosters (SRBs), and the expendable external tank (ET) containing liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen. The Space Shuttle was launched vertically, like a conventional rocket, with the two SRBs operating in parallel with the orbiter's three main engines, which were fueled from the ET. The SRBs were jettisoned before the vehicle reached orbit, while the main engines continued to operate, and the ET was jettisoned after main engine cutoff and 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 deorbit and reenter the atmosphere. The orbiter was protected during reentry by its thermal protection system tiles, and it glided as a spaceplane to a runway landing, usually to the Shuttle Landing Facility at KSC, Florida, or to Rogers Dry Lake in Edwards Air Force Base, California. If the landing occurred at Edwards, the orbiter was flown back to the KSC atop the Shuttle Carrier Aircraft (SCA), a specially modified Boeing 747 designed to carry the shuttle above it.

The first orbiter, Enterprise, was built in 1976 and used in Approach and Landing Tests (ALT), but had no orbital capability. Four fully operational orbiters were initially built: Columbia, Challenger, Discovery, and Atlantis. Of these, two were lost in mission accidents: Challenger in 1986 and Columbia in 2003, with a total of 14 astronauts killed. A fifth operational (and sixth in total) orbiter, Endeavour, was built in 1991 to replace Challenger. The three surviving operational vehicles were retired from service following Atlantis's final flight on July 21, 2011. The U.S. relied on the Russian Soyuz spacecraft to transport astronauts to the ISS from the last Shuttle flight until the launch of the Crew Dragon Demo-2 mission in May 2020.^[9]

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