STS-63 (Discovery)

The second Shuttle-Mir mission saw Discovery approach the station and fly around it, testing critical approach and docking systems for future Shuttle-Mir flights. The mission was the first time a woman piloted a U.S. spacecraft.

The first reusable launch and landing spacecraft, the Space Shuttle began a new chapter of human space exploration. It launched like a rocket but landed on a runway like a plane. Shuttle crews deployed dozens of commercial satellites and two interplanetary probes to Venus and Jupiter. The Shuttle served as a mini space station and hosted hundreds of biomedical, psychological, physiological, materials science, and physics experiments that have directly benefited life on Earth. The five flight-worthy Shuttles -- Columbia, Challenger, Discovery, Atlantis, and Endeavour -- flew 135 missions over 30 years. The Shuttles helped construct the Russian Mir space station and brought nearly 80% of the International Space Station to orbit. Shuttles also deployed and serviced the Hubble Space Telescope.

Space Shuttle

Twelve Sprague-Dawley Rats (#2)

United States of America

CCCP

This astronaut crossed the Kármán Line (100 km), the internationally accepted boundary of space.

Crossed Kármán Line

This astronaut is in the top 5% for total time in space.

Elite Spaceflyer

This astronaut has spent over a month in space.

Space Resident

Soyuz T-8

Soyuz T-8 was a planned flight to the Salyut 7 space station that was aborted after a failed docking attempt.

Soyuz is a human-carrying capsule built and operated by Russia, capable of transporting up to three people to the Space Station at a time. It has been upgraded numerous times since its first use in the 1960s for the Soviet lunar program and was the only crewed vehicle for the Station from 2011 to 2020.

Soyuz

Soyuz T-10-1

Soyuz T-10-1 was the first of two Soyuz T-10 missions. Just 90 seconds before liftoff, the Soyuz-U rocket caught fire. The control teams sent commands for Soyuz T-10 to abort off the top of the rocket and carry the two-person crew safely away. But the manual command never reached the rocket as communication lines had already burned through at the pad. The Soyuz T-10-1 crew could not manually activate the abort system. An emergency radio command was sent after several seconds as two people in the control room had to receive the same order and enter the same command into the computer within five seconds to send the command. Soyuz T-10-1's Launch Escape Tower fired to pull the crew away from the rocket, which exploded six seconds later. The crew experienced 17 Gs of acceleration during the abort but landed safely 4 km from the burning launch pad.

Soyuz TM-4

This mission delivered the EO-3 long duration crew to Space Station Mir. EO-3 lasted a full year.

STS-86 (Atlantis)

The seventh Shuttle-Mir docking delivered a new NASA crewmember to the Russia station. This was Shuttle Atlantis' seventh and final back-to-back mission to Mir.

Vladimir G. Titov

USSR

NASA

This astronaut visited the International Space Station.

ISS Visitor

This astronaut is in the top 5% for number of missions.

Frequent Flyer

STS-52 (Columbia)

Columbia's crew deployed the LAGEOS-II satellite for NASA & Italy and carried out a variety of experiments inside and outside of the Shuttle. Some of Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry's ashes were carried to space on this mission.

STS-102 (Discovery)

This Space Shuttle logistics mission resupplied the International Space Station and served as a crew rotation flight between the Expedition 1 and 2 crews.

STS-113 (Endeavour)

Endeavour rotated the Expedition 5 and 6 International Space Station crews and delivered the P1 truss to the ISS. Construction of the ISS was halted after this mission and did not resume until 2006 due to the loss of Space Shuttle Columbia and her seven-person crew on the next Shuttle flight. After four days of landing delays because of weather, this mission holds the record for most delayed landing attempts of a human spaceflight.

STS-32 (Columbia)

This mission saw the deployment of a Defense communications satellite and the years-delayed retrieval of the Long Duration Exposure Facility launched on STS-41-C. Lasting 11 days, NASA used this mission to test a crew's ability to function and fly the Space Shuttle after a long mission.

James D. Wetherbee

This astronaut is the first British man to go to space.

First Birtish Man

STS-84 (Atlantis)

The sixth Space Shuttle docking to the Russian space station Mir delivered a new NASA crewmember to the outpost. During undocking, Atlantis tested a new European sensor that would be used on Europe's future International Space Station resupply vehicle.

Soyuz TMA-3

Soyuz TMA-3 ferried the two-person Expedition 8 crew to and from the International Space Station. ESA astronaut Duque joined for a short duration mission, returning to Earth on Soyuz TMA-2.

STS-45 (Atlantis)

This was the first mission of the Atmospheric Laboratory for Applications and Science pallet, a multinational effort from the U.S., France, Germany, Switzerland, the Netherlands, and Japan.

STS-56 (Discovery)

This was the second flight of the Atmospheric Laboratory for Applications and Science pallet and focused on the relationship between the Sun and the Earth. The mission deployed and re-captured the SPARTAN-201 satellite.

STS-103 (Discovery)

The third servicing and upgrade mission to the Hubble Space Telescope.

C. Michael Foale

United Kingdom

This astronaut became the first African American to spacewalk.

First African American to Spacewalk

STS-55 (Columbia)

The second German-sponsored Space Shuttle flight saw 88 experiments from 11 nations taken to orbit.  A March launch attempt ended at T-3 seconds with an on-pad abort and emergency shutdown of Columbia's engines after a failure was detected.

Bernard A. Harris Jr.

STS-57 (Endeavour)

This multifaceted mission saw the crew perform numerous biomedical and materials science experiments, retrieve ESA's European Retrievable Carrier satellite, and perform a spacewalk to test the Space Shuttle arm's ability to perform fine maneuvers while carrying a high-mass object.

STS-83 (Columbia)

This planned 16-day mission was cut short after just 4 days when one of three critical electricity-producing fuel cells quit working. NASA made the unprecedented decision to refly the entire mission -- same vehicle (Columbia), same crew, same payloads -- as soon as possible.

STS-94 (Columbia)

This reflight of STS-83 marked the only time to date that a human space mission was completely reflown with the same crew, vehicle, and experiments. This time the flight was a success.

STS-99 (Endeavour)

The Shuttle Radar Topography Mission was a joint NASA-German flight to create the most complete high-resolution digital topographic database of Earth.

Janice E. Voss

STS-93 (Columbia)

On the first U.S. spaceflight commanded by a woman, Columbia's five-person crew successfully deployed the Chandra X-Ray Observatory.

STS-114 (Discovery)

STS-114 was the first of two Return To Flight missions for the Space Shuttle after the STS-107/Columbia accident and the second time Discovery flew the program's Return To Flight mission. The flight coincidentally launched at the exact same local time at the launch site (10:39:00 am Eastern) as when Columbia had launched on STS-107. This was the second Shuttle flight commanded by a woman. Discovery's crew resupplied the International Space Station, demonstrated some safety upgrades/improvements, and performed the first in-space repair of a Shuttle's heat shield. A large foam shedding event during launch grounded the Shuttle and proved NASA had not completely solved the issue that brought down Columbia and her crew. This and Hurricane Katrina's impact on New Orleans (where the External Tanks were built) resulted in a year-long stop of Shuttle launches.

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