Goodbye, space shuttle!

Courtesy - Daily News by Nalaka GUNAWARDENE and Vindana ARIYAWANSA

The US space agency NASA’s Space Shuttle programme has just ended after 30 years. Space Shuttle Atlantis performed STS-135 mission which was the final flight by a Space Shuttle: it lifted off from NASA’s Kennedy Space Centre in Florida on July 8, 2011, and landed at the same facility on 21 July after 200 orbits around Earth and a journey of 5,284,862 miles. Thus ended three decades of exploration that taught humanity much about how people can live, work and thrive in near orbital space. The space shuttle was developed in the 1970s as a reusable launch system and orbital spacecraft for human space flights.

The first of four orbital test flights occurred in 1981, and operational flights commenced in 1982. Starting with Columbia and continuing with Challenger, Discovery, Atlantis and Endeavour, the space shuttles have carried people into orbit repeatedly; launched, recovered and repaired satellites; conducted cutting-edge research; and built the largest structure in space todate - the International Space Station. The winged Space Shuttle could be launched vertically, usually carrying four to seven astronauts (although eight have been carried) and up to 50,000 lb (22,700 kg) of payload into low earth orbit.

The shuttle is the only winged manned spacecraft to achieve orbit and land, and the only reusable space vehicle that has ever made multiple flights into orbit.