Transport & space · 1981

Space Shuttle

A winged, partly reusable spacecraft flies 135 missions over 30 years.

Columbia first launched in April 1981. The Shuttle carried up to 27 tonnes to orbit, deployed Hubble and built most of the ISS. Its reuse proved costlier than hoped, and the Challenger and Columbia disasters killed 14 astronauts before retirement in 2011.

See it in the living tree Wikipedia

Arcs above join it to what it stood on, arcs below to what it led to. The bar places this stretch on the tree's whole timeline.

What it built on 2

Apollo 11 Moon landing 1969
Saturn V 1967

What it led to 3

Hubble Space Telescope 1990
Hubble Space Telescope 1990
International Space Station 1998

Watch

STS-1 Full Mission - Historical Narration and Footage - First Shuttle Flight, Launch, Landing, 1981Retro Space HD · YouTube

Related measurements

The dashed line marks when it first worked.

Objects launched into space Latest: 4.51k per year (2025) Source: Our World in Data

Objects launched into space (cumulative) Latest: 24.9k objects (2025) Source: Our World in Data