Vintage NASA First Launch of The Space Shuttle Pass Badge 1981
2 1/4” x 4” , No 2590
The
Space Shuttle
is a retired, partially
reusable
low Earth orbital
spacecraft system operated from 1981 to 2011 by the U.S.
National Aeronautics and Space Administration
(NASA) as part of the
Space Shuttle program
. Its official program name was
Space Transportation System
(STS), taken from a 1969 plan for a system of reusable spacecraft where it was the only item funded for development.
[7]
The first (
STS-1
) of four orbital test flights occurred in 1981, leading to operational flights (
STS-5
) beginning in 1982. Five complete Space Shuttle orbiter vehicles were built and flown on a total of 135 missions from 1981 to 2011. They launched from the
Kennedy Space Center
(KSC) in
Florida
. Operational missions launched numerous
satellites
,
interplanetary probes
, and the
Hubble Space Telescope
(HST), conducted science experiments in orbit, participated in the
Shuttle-
Mir
program
with Russia, and participated in construction and servicing of the
International Space Station
(ISS). The Space Shuttle fleet's total mission time was 1,323 days