Then it headed home. AUDIO: three bells. Having fired the imagination of a generation, a ship like no other, its place in history secured, the space shuttle pulls into port for the last time—its voyage at an end. Listen to today's episode of StarDate on the web the same day it airs in high-quality streaming audio without any extra ads or announcements. Skip to main content. The End. While in orbit, the space shuttle circled the planet at some 17, miles 28, kilometers an hour, which means that the crew could see a sunrise or sunset every 45 minutes.
After liftoff from Florida's John F. Kennedy Space Center, a typical space shuttle mission lasted ten days to two weeks and included a full schedule of scientific experiments and technological maintenance. Astronauts performed a variety of tasks aloft, including satellite repair and construction of the International Space Station. Each of the shuttles was specially equipped for such functions, most notably with a large cargo bay and a robotic manipulator arm.
On April 12, , John Young and Robert Crippen launched the space shuttle program by piloting Columbia to space and returning successfully two days later. In space shuttle astronaut Sally Ride became the first U.
The program was a tremendous success for NASA, but it also endured several tragedies. A string of successful missions was broken in when Challenger disintegrated seconds after liftoff, killing its seven-person crew. The space shuttle program was suspended in the wake of the accident, and no shuttles were launched for nearly three years.
The program rebounded in April with the successful mission of Discovery. Astronauts on this momentous flight placed the Hubble Space Telescope into orbit. This incredible imaging device has subsequently added much to our understanding of the cosmos while returning otherworldly images that bring the universe to life. In the space shuttle Atlantis successfully docked at the Russian space station Mir, bringing the two great space programs closer together in an era of cooperation that stood in marked contrast to the early days of the space race.
Tragedy struck again in February when the program lost its second shuttle: Columbia disintegrated over Texas just 16 minutes before its scheduled landing, and all seven crew members were lost. Despite this heartbreaking setback, the space shuttle was flying regularly again by And in February Endeavour brought up the Cupola, a robotic control station with seven windows that provides the ISS crew with a degree view.
If pre-departure inspections had revealed problems with the shuttle's heat-shield tiles, Walheim said, the plan was to bring down the crew members one at a time on Soyuz spacecraft over the ensuing months. Such inspections became routine after it was determined that tile damage incurred during launch was responsible for the loss of Columbia.
Hurley would have been stuck up there the longest, he said, making him the first American to go about a year in space, long before Scott Kelly marked that milestone in Less publicized at the time of STS's flight was the huge network of ground personnel who supported the mission, with many of those people facing unemployment due to the end of the space shuttle program once processing of Atlantis' landing was completed.
Leinbach added that one of the safety lessons he tried to impart to his team was how "signing off" on mission items during planning and operations meant taking responsibility, and not just agreeing with colleagues or managers. Joining Leinbach during the interview was Charlie Blackwell-Thompson, who served as the chief of launch and landing through the retirement of the space shuttle program. Blackwell-Thompson is also the launch director of Artemis 1.
Knowing STS was the last mission, she recalled, "you couldn't quite bring yourself to leave" after the mission safely touched down. She recalled walking back to the Orbiter Processing Facility a few hours after landing, while Atlantis was being towed there from the runway. The program was coming to an end. It had been a great program; it's been a great run. To be able to walk Atlantis back was just a really special, special thing for me. Follow Elizabeth Howell on Twitter howellspace. On July 21, , a powerful earthquake off the coast of Greece causes a tsunami that devastates the city of Alexandria, Egypt.
Although there were no measuring tools at the time, scientists now estimate that the quake was actually two tremors in succession, the largest of which Schoolteacher John T. President Dwight D. Live TV. This Day In History. History Vault. Art, Literature, and Film History. Great Britain. Civil War.
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