🇺🇸 Space Shuttle

After the last Apollo flight in 1975, the shuttle was the workhorse of NASA from 1981 onwards. The first flight of the system took place on 12 April 1981, since then a total of 135 flights have been carried out, with two fatal accidents. In both the seven crew members and the space ferries were lost.

The development of the Space Shuttle originally aimed at significantly reducing the cost of a space flight with reusable rocket stages. This proved to be an unacceptable vision. The STS program was discontinued in 2011 after 30 years of operation.

Among the most important successes are the suspension of various space probes as well as the Hubble Space Telescope, various flights with built-in laboratories, flights to Mir and ISS. A total of five spacecrafted Orbiter were built, as well as another non-space-capable for atmospheric flight tests.

If it was necessary for the shuttle to land at a different location than in Florida, it was hackbacked back to a modified Boeing 747 (the so-called Shuttle Carrier Aircraft, SCA). In order to improve the aerodynamics during this flight, a rearward tapered cover was installed at the rear of the shuttle to be transported, which obscures the shuttle's engines.

Source: Wikipedia