Tag: Columbia
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40 years after STS-2: Columbia’s second flight and the path to reusability
April 14, 1981. The orbiter Columbia rested on a runway at Edwards Air Force Base, California, having completed the first-ever Space Shuttle mission. Now a daunting task lay ahead. Something that had never been attempted before would now have to become reality. Columbia would have to be turned around for a second mission. No longer…
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Roscosmos, NASA celebrate historic launch anniversaries while looking to the future
Today, Roscosmos is celebrating the 60th anniversary of the Vostok-1 mission, which launched Yuri Gagarin and the first human spaceflight, while NASA simultaneously commemorates the 40th anniversary of the first launch of the world’s first reusable spacecraft, when John Young and Bob Crippen embarked on the most ambitious test flight in history aboard the shuttle…
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April 12 marks 60 years since Gagarin’s spaceflight, 40 years since shuttle debut
Cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin before launch April 12, 1961. Credit: Roscosmos Sixty years ago Monday, a 27-year-old Russian test pilot named Yuri Gagarin strapped into a Vostok capsule in Central Asia and rode into orbit atop a launcher derived from a Soviet nuclear missile, becoming the first human to travel into the void of space. Twenty…
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S.S. Kalpana Chawla Cygnus arrives at Space Station
Northrop Grumman’s Cygnus vehicle, the S.S. Kalpana Chawla, has arrived at the ISS following launch or its Antares rocket for the NG-14 mission. The flight delivered thousands of kilograms/pounds of equipment, crew supplies, and science to the orbital outpost. Liftoff occurred Friday, 2 October at 21:16 EDT (Saturday, 3 October at 01:16 UTC) from Pad…
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Tradition, Tragedy, Tribute: The Story of Doug Hurley, Bob Behnken, Columbia, and Endeavour
On Saturday, May 30, Douglas Hurley and Robert Behnken became the first astronauts to launch to orbit from the United States in almost nine years. Demo-2 was the first crewed launch for SpaceX, and the culmination of a decade of hard work in NASA’s Commercial Crew program. 20 years ago, Hurley and Behnken were just…
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Tradition, Tragedy, Tribute: The Story of Doug Hurley, Bob Behnken, Columbia, and Endeavour
On Saturday, May 30, Douglas Hurley and Robert Behnken became the first astronauts to launch to orbit from the United States in almost nine years. Demo-2 was the first crewed launch for SpaceX, and the culmination of a decade of hard work in NASA’s Commercial Crew program. 20 years ago, Hurley and Behnken were just…
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STS-93 at Twenty Years: “A very long eight and a half minutes”
After another launch scrub for weather, Space Shuttle mission STS-93 lifted off from the Kennedy Space Center (KSC) in Florida twenty years ago in 1999 to begin an eventful ascent into low Earth orbit. Shuttle Columbia, with NASA’s first female spaceflight commander Eileen Collins leading a crew of five, successfully reached orbit and went on…
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STS-93 at Twenty Years: “I had to hit the button!”
In the span of a few seconds, a smooth countdown to launch Space Shuttle Mission STS-93, a five-person crew, and the Chandra X-Ray Observatory abruptly ended twenty years ago just before ignition of Orbiter Columbia’s three Space Shuttle Main Engines (SSME). An indication that hydrogen gas was leaking into the orbiter’s aft compartment where the…
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STS-93 at Twenty Years: Planning to launch Chandra
Just a few days from the thirtieth anniversary of Apollo 11, the mission that landed the first Americans on the Moon, the countdown for Space Shuttle mission STS-93 started at the Kennedy Space Center (KSC) in Florida. Liftoff of Shuttle Orbiter Columbia from Launch Pad 39B was planned for early on the morning of July…
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April 12, 1981: 35 years since the maiden space shuttle launch
America’s first space shuttle launched on this day 35 years ago as the reusable flying machine, Columbia, lifted off from Kennedy Space Center with John Young and Bob Crippen aboard. The launch came 20 years to the day after human spaceflight began. Yuri Gagarin launched aboard Vostok 1 to become the first person to orbit…