![]() This group evaluated the shuttle studies to date, and recommended a national space strategy including building a space shuttle. In 1969, President Richard Nixon formed the Space Task Group, chaired by Vice President Spiro T. ![]() īefore the Apollo 11 moon landing in 1969, NASA began early studies of space shuttle designs. The External Tank was painted white for the first two Space Shuttle launches. For missions beyond low Earth orbit, NASA is building the Space Launch System and the Orion spacecraft.Ĭonception and development Main article: Space Shuttle design process Crew service to the ISS will be flown exclusively by the Russian Soyuz while NASA works on the Commercial Crew Development program. By 2012, cargo supply to the International Space Station began to be flown by privately owned commercial craft under NASA's Commercial Resupply Services by SpaceX's successfully tested and partially reusable Dragon spacecraft, followed by Orbital Sciences' Cygnus spacecraft in late 2013. Secret military missions are being flown by the US Air Force's "highly successful" unmanned mini- space plane, the X-37B. Functions performed by the Shuttle for 30 years will be done by not one but many different spacecraft currently flying or in advanced development. Retirement of the Shuttle ended the era in which all of America's varied space activities were performed by one craft -or even one organization. The Space Shuttle program formally ended on August 31, 2011. The Space Shuttle program finished with its last mission, STS-135 flown by Atlantis, in July 2011, retiring the final Shuttle in the fleet. 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 Apon STS-1. ![]() The first experimental orbiter Enterprise was a high-altitude glider, launched from the back of a specially modified Boeing 747, only for initial atmospheric landing tests (ALT). Bush's Vision for Space Exploration, use of the Space Shuttle was to be focused almost exclusively on completing assembly of the ISS, which was far behind schedule at that point. In 2004, according to the President George W. President Ronald Reagan, but the ISS suffered from long delays, design changes and cost over-runs and forced the service life of the Space Shuttle to be extended several times until 2011 when it was finally retired - serving twice as long than it was originally designed to do. space station evolved into the International Space Station and was formally initiated in 1983 by U.S. The Shuttle was originally conceived of and presented to the public in 1972 as a 'Space Truck' which would, among other things, be used to build a United States space station in low Earth orbit during the 1980s and then be replaced by a new vehicle by the early 1990s. ![]() Each vehicle was designed with a projected lifespan of 100 launches, or 10 years' operational life, though original selling points on the shuttles were over 150 launches and over a 15-year operational span with a 'launch per month' expected at the peak of the program, but extensive delays in the development of the International Space Station never created such a peak demand for frequent flights.Īlthough the concept had been explored since the late 1960s, the program formally commenced in 1972, and was the sole focus of NASA's manned operations after the final Apollo and Skylab flights in the mid-1970s. The orbiter also recovered satellites and other payloads (e.g., from the ISS) from orbit and returned them to Earth, though its use in this capacity was rare. Its missions involved carrying large payloads to various orbits (including segments to be added to the International Space Station (ISS)), providing crew rotation for the space station, and performing service missions. The Shuttle is the only winged manned spacecraft to have achieved orbit and land, and the only reusable manned space vehicle that has ever made multiple flights into orbit (the Russian shuttle Buran was very similar and had the same capabilities but made only one unmanned spaceflight before it was cancelled). When its mission was complete, the orbiter would re-enter the Earth's atmosphere and land like a glider at either the Kennedy Space Center or Edwards Air Force Base. The Space Shuttle system-composed of an orbiter launched with two reusable solid rocket boosters and a disposable external fuel tank- carried up to eight astronauts and up to 50,000 lb ( Template:Convert/round kg) of payload into low Earth orbit (LEO). The Space Shuttle program, officially called the Space Transportation System ( STS), was the United States government's manned launch vehicle program from 1981 to 2011, administered by NASA and officially beginning in 1972.
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