STS-78 (Columbia)

This international Life and Microgravity Spacelab mission from NASA, ESA, and Canada featured more than 40 experiments designed to validate long duration space station missions.

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 (#4)

United States of America

NASA

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

Crossed Kármán Line

This astronaut has spent over a month in space.

Space Resident

STS-44 (Atlantis)

The second unclassified Department of Defense Space Shuttle mission deployed the Defense Support Program satellite and supported numerous experiments.

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.

STS-70 (Discovery)

Discovery launched NASA's seventh TDRS satellite. The flight was delayed several weeks when woodpeckers, trying to nest on the External Tank, put 71 holes in its insulating foam.

Terence T. Henricks

This astronaut visited the International Space Station.

ISS Visitor

This astronaut conducted the longest spacewalk on March 12, 2001, it lasted eight hours and 56 minutes.

Longest Spacewalk 

STS-64 (Discovery)

This multifaceted science mission brought together life and materials science experiments, laser pulse observations of Earth, testing of new spacewalk equipment, and a free-flying release and recapture satellite on a single flight.

STS-101 (Atlantis)

This logistics and supply run to the International Space Station was the first of three missions to prepare the outpost for its first permanent crew, Expedition 1.

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-54 (Endeavour)

This mission deployed the sixth TDRS satellite for NASA and tested various spacewalk techniques for future space station design.

Susan J. Helms

STS-87 (Columbia)

This science mission saw the first spacewalk performed by a Japanese astronaut and continued spacewalk testing of construction and maintenance procedures for the upcoming International Space Station.

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.

Kevin R. Kregel

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

Elite Spacewalker

STS-90 (Columbia)

This dedicated research flight of Columbia was Spacelab's final mission. It was called Neurolab and examined the effects of microgravity on the nervous system. The mission was a 26 experiment partnership between six space agencies and seven U.S. research institutes.

STS-109 (Columbia)

The fourth servicing mission to the Hubble Space Telescope replaced and upgraded science instruments and swapped out the telescopes solar arrays. Columbia also reboosted Hubble's orbit.

STS-123 (Endeavour)

During this first of three Space Shuttle flights to assemble the Japanese Kibo laboratory complex, Endeavour's crew delivered the Japanese Experiment Logistics Module to the International Space Station. The mission also rotated an ISS crewmember and brought Canada's human-esque DEXTRE robot to the outpost.

Richard M. Linnehan

Charles E. Brady Jr.

CNES

Jean-Jacques Favier

France

Soyuz TMA-15

Soyuz TMA-15 ferried three members of the Expedition 20 crew to the International Space Station.

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.

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