Space Shuttle Discovery

Shuttle Orbiter Discovery (NASA Orbiter Vehicle Designation: OV-103) is a NASA Space Shuttle.

First flown on August 30, 1984, Discovery is the third operational shuttle (excluding test shuttle Enterprise), and the oldest remaining in service. The orbiter is still operational today, and has performed both research and International Space Station (ISS) assembly missions.

The craft takes its name from HMS Discovery, a ship that accompanied explorer James Cook on his third and final major voyage. Unofficially, the shuttle is named after Discovery, the spaceship from the film .

Discovery was the shuttle that launched the Hubble Space Telescope, and two of its three service missions were conducted from it. It has also launched the Ulysses probe and three TDRS satellites. It was the first shuttle used in the return to space after the Challenger Disaster, and is scheduled to be the first shuttle used in the return to space after the Columbia Disaster, tentatively scheduled for May 2005.

Flights

Space Shuttle Discovery has flown 30 flights, spent 241.95-days in space, completed 3,808 orbits, and flown 98,710,673 miles in total, as of February 2003.

Notable missions

STS-41-D: First Flight
STS-26: Return to space after Challenger disaster
STS-114 (Spring 2005): Return to space after STS-107 (Columbia disaster)

External links

Orbiter Vehicles

Shuttle Orbiter Discovery (OV-103)

NodeWorks boosts web surfing!

Page Returned in 0.110 seconds - HTML Compressed 70.6%

This article is from Wikipedia. All text is available
under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License.