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Today in History: First Launch of the Space Shuttle

Today is the 25^th anniversary of the Space Shuttle. It was April 12^th, 1981 when the Columbia, the first Space Shuttle was launched for the first time. The mission, STS-1, was the first US manned space flight since the Appollo-Soyuz Test Project in July of 1975.

The NASA Mission Summary of STS-1 indicates the mission had an orbit sltitude of 166 nautical miles, revolved around the Earth 37 times, and had a total mission duration of 2 days, 6 hours, 20 minutes, and 53 seconds.

According to the NASA Mission Summary, the Mission Objectives were:

Demonstrate safe launch into orbit and safe return of the orbiter and crew. Verify the combined performance of the entire shuttle vehicle - orbiter, solid rocket boosters and external tank.

Payloads included the Developmental Flight Instrumentation (DFI) and the Aerodynamic Coefficient Identifications Package (ACIP) pallet containing equipment for recording temperatures, pressures and acceleration levels at various points on the vehicle.

There's more information from Wikipedia on STS-1 and the Space Shuttle program in general.

— michael | April 12, 2006 06:29 PM | I found it online