With its maiden flight on 12 April 1981 NASA’s National Space Transportation System, also known as the Space Shuttle, was originally conceived as a reusable spaceplane that would make weekly trips into orbit when the then US president Richard Nixon approved the programme in January 1972.

With an original launch target of 1979 the Shuttle’s delay was due to development issues including its engines and reusable thermal protection system.

The Space Shuttle consists of the orbiter, which is the aircraft-like vehicle that carries the astronauts, two reusable solid rocket motors that provide most of the thrust on lift-off and an expendable external tank for the liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen propellant the orbiter’s main engines use during the ascent.

Originally a four orbiter fleet called, Columbia, Discovery, Challenger and Atlantis. Challenger was destroyed in an ascent accident in January 1986 killing all onboard, and Columbia and its crew were lost during reentry in February 2003. Challenger was replaced by the orbiter Endeavour. The remaining Shuttle fleet is expected to be retired in 2010.

Did you know?

There was also a test orbiter called Enterprise that never flew into space.