Space Shuttle History

NASA began early studies of space shuttle designs in the 1960's. In 1969 President Richard Nixon formed the Space Task Group, chaired by vice president Spiro T. Agnew. This group evaluated the shuttle studies to date and recommended a national space strategy including building a space shuttle. The shuttle program was formally launched on January 5, 1972, when President Nixon announced that NASA would proceed with the development of a reusable space shuttle system. The final design was less costly to build and less technically ambitious than earlier fully reusable designs. In August 1973, the X-24B proved that an unpowered spaceplane could re-enter Earth's atmosphere from space for a safe return to a horizontal landing.

The first complete orbiter was originally planned to be named Constitution, but a massive write-in campaign from fans of the Star Trek television series convinced the White House to change the name to Enterprise. Amid great fanfare, the Enterprise (designated OV-101) was rolled out on September 17, 1976 and later conducted a successful series of glide-approach and landing tests that were the first real validation of the design.

The first fully functional orbiter was the Columbia (designated OV-102), built in Palmdale, California. It was delivered to Kennedy Space Center on March 25, 1979, and was first launched on April 12, 1981—the 20th anniversary of Yuri Gagarin's space flight—with a crew of two. Challenger (OV-099) was delivered to Kennedy Space Center in July 1982, Discovery (OV-103) in November 1983 and Atlantis (OV-104) in April 1985. Challenger was originally built and used as a Structural Test Article (STA-099) but was converted to a complete shuttle when this was found to be less expensive than converting Enterprise from its Approach and Landing Test configuration, according to NASA.

Shuttle Disasters

On January 28, 1986, the Space Shuttle Challenger disintegrated 73 seconds after launch due to the failure of the right SRB, killing all seven astronauts on board. The disaster was caused by cold-temperature impairment of the SRB O-rings, a mission critical component. Repeated warnings from design engineers voicing concerns about the lack of evidence of the O-ring's safety when the temperature was below 53 °F (12 °C) were ignored by NASA managers.

In 2003, the Space Shuttle Columbia disintegrated during re-entry because of damage to the carbon-carbon leading edge of the wing caused during launch. Ground control engineers made three separate requests for high-resolution images taken by the Department of Defense that would have provided a clearer understanding of the extent of the damage, while NASA's chief thermal protection system (TPS) engineer requested that astronauts on board the Columbia be allowed to leave the vehicle to inspect the damaged tiles. NASA managers intervened to stop the Department of Defense's assistance and refused the request for the spacewalk and thus the feasibility of scenarios for astronaut repair or rescue by the Space Shuttle Atlantis were not considered by NASA management at the time.

Did you know?

Out of the five fully functional shuttle orbiters built, three remain. Enterprise, which was used for sub-orbital test flights but not intended for orbital flight, had many parts taken out for use on the other orbiters. It was later visually restored and is on display at the National Air and Space Museum's Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center.

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