Flights
Space Shuttle Columbia flew 28 flights, spent 300.74 days in space, completed 4,808 orbits, and flew 125,204,911 miles (201,497,772 km) in total, including its final mission.
Columbia was the only shuttle to have been spaceworthy during both the Shuttle-Mir and International Space Station programs and yet to have never visited either Mir or ISS. In contrast, Discovery, Atlantis, and Endeavour have all visited both stations at least once, as Columbia was not suited for high-inclination missions. Challenger was destroyed before the Shuttle-Mir Program began, and Enterprise never flew in space.
| # | Date | Designation | Launch pad | Landing location | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 1981, April 12 | STS-1 | 39-A | Edwards Air Force Base | First shuttle mission. |
| 2 | 1981, November 12 | STS-2 | 39-A | Edwards Air Force Base | First re-use of manned space vehicle |
| 3 | 1982, March 22 | STS-3 | 39-A | White Sands Space Harbor | First mission with an unpainted External tank. Only time that a space shuttle landed at the White Sands Space Harbor. |
| 4 | 1982, June 27 | STS-4 | 39-A | Edwards Air Force Base | Last shuttle R&D flight |
| 5 | 1982, November 11 | STS-5 | 39-A | Edwards Air Force Base | First four-person crew, first deployment of commercial satellite. |
| 6 | 1983 November 28 | STS-9 | 39-A | Edwards Air Force Base | First six-person crew, first Spacelab. |
| 7 | 1986, January 12 | STS-61-C | 39-A | Edwards Air Force Base | Representative Bill Nelson (D-FL) on board/ final successful shuttle flight before Challenger disaster |
| 8 | 1989, August 8 | STS-28 | 39-B | Edwards Air Force Base | Launched KH-11 reconnaissance satellite |
| 9 | 1990, January 9 | STS-32 | 39-A | Edwards Air Force Base | Retrieved Long Duration Exposure Facility |
| 10 | 1990, December 2 | STS-35 | 39-B | Edwards Air Force Base | Carried multiple X-ray & UV telescopes |
| 11 | 1991, June 5 | STS-40 | 39-B | Edwards Air Force Base | 5th Spacelab – Life Sciences-1 |
| 12 | 1992, June 25 | STS-50 | 39-A | Kennedy Space Center | U.S. Microgravity Laboratory 1 (USML-1) |
| 13 | 1992, October 22 | STS-52 | 39-B | Kennedy Space Center | Deployed Laser Geodynamic Satellite II |
| 14 | 1993, April 26 | STS-55 | 39-A | Edwards Air Force Base | German Spacelab D-2 Microgravity Research |
| 15 | 1993, October 18 | STS-58 | 39-B | Edwards Air Force Base | Spacelab Life Sciences |
| 16 | 1994, March 4 | STS-62 | 39-B | Kennedy Space Center | United States Microgravity Payload-2 (USMP-2) |
| 17 | 1994, July 8 | STS-65 | 39-A | Kennedy Space Center | International Microgravity Laboratory (IML-2) |
| 18 | 1995, October 20 | STS-73 | 39-B | Kennedy Space Center | United States Microgravity Laboratory (USML-2) |
| 19 | 1996, February 22 | STS-75 | 39-B | Kennedy Space Center | Tethered Satellite System Reflight (TSS-1R) |
| 20 | 1996, June 20 | STS-78 | 39-B | Kennedy Space Center | Life and Microgravity Spacelab (LMS) |
| 21 | 1996, November 19 | STS-80 | 39-B | Kennedy Space Center | 3rd flight of Wake Shield Facility (WSF)/ longest Shuttle flight |
| 22 | 1997, April 4 | STS-83 | 39-A | Kennedy Space Center | Microgravity Science Laboratory (MSL)- cut short |
| 23 | 1997, July 1 | STS-94 | 39-A | Kennedy Space Center | Microgravity Science Laboratory (MSL)- reflight |
| 24 | 1997, November 19 | STS-87 | 39-B | Kennedy Space Center | United States Microgravity Payload (USMP-4) |
| 25 | 1998, April 13 | STS-90 | 39-B | Kennedy Space Center | Neurolab – Spacelab |
| 26 | 1999, July 23 | STS-93 | 39-B | Kennedy Space Center | Deployed Chandra X-ray Observatory |
| 27 | 2002, March 1 | STS-109 | 39-A | Kennedy Space Center | Hubble Space Telescope service mission (HSM-3B) |
| 28 | 2003, January 16 | STS-107 | 39-A | Did not land (Planned to land at Kennedy Space Center) | A multi-disciplinary microgravity and Earth science research mission. Shuttle destroyed during re-entry on February 1, 2003 and all seven astronauts on board killed. |
Read more about this topic: Space Shuttle Columbia
Famous quotes containing the word flights:
“Franklin said once in one of his inspired flights of malignity—
Early to bed and early to rise
Make a man healthy and wealth and wise.
As if it were any object to a boy to be healthy and wealthy and wise on such terms.”
—Mark Twain [Samuel Langhorne Clemens] (1835–1910)
“A noble soul is not the one that can manage the highest flights but the one that rises very little and falls very little but always dwells in a free, resplendent atmosphere and altitude.”
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)
“Old man, it’s four flights up and for what?
Your room is hardly any bigger than your bed.
Puffing as you climb, you are a brown woodcut
stooped over the thin rail and the wornout tread.”
—Anne Sexton (1928–1974)