First Space Shuttle Flight
Space Shuttle Columbia completed the first orbital shuttle mission
April 12, 1981
A New Kind of Spacecraft
On April 12, 1981 — exactly 20 years after Yuri Gagarin's flight — the Space Shuttle Columbia lifted off from Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Astronauts John Young and Robert Crippen were aboard for a two-day test mission called STS-1. The Space Shuttle was unlike anything that had flown before: a reusable orbiter that launched like a rocket, glided back to Earth like a plane, and could be flown again. It was the most complex flying machine ever built at the time.
How the Shuttle Worked
The shuttle system had three main parts: the orbiter (the winged spacecraft), a large orange external fuel tank, and two solid rocket boosters. Only the orbiter was reused — the boosters parachuted into the ocean for recovery, and the fuel tank burned up on re-entry. At landing, Columbia touched down on a dry lakebed at Edwards Air Force Base in California. The mission lasted 54 hours and proved the concept worked. NASA declared it a full success.
A 30-Year Program
The Space Shuttle flew 135 missions over 30 years, carrying satellites, space station components, and the Hubble Space Telescope. It was also the vehicle that launched and serviced the Hubble Space Telescope. Two shuttles were lost in accidents — Challenger in 1986 and Columbia in 2003 — claiming 14 lives. The program ended in 2011 when Atlantis completed the final mission. The five surviving orbiters now rest in museums across the United States.