STS-1 was the first orbital flight of the Space Shuttle program, launched on April 12, 1981, and returning to Earth April 14. Space Shuttle Columbia orbited the earth 37 times in this 54.5-hour mission. It was the first US manned orbital space flight since the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project on July 15, 1975, and one of the few manned maiden test flight of a new spacecraft system although it was the culmination of sub-orbital and atmospheric testing.
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STS-1 was the first orbital flight of the Space Shuttle program, launched on April 12, 1981, and returning to Earth April 14. Space Shuttle Columbia orbited the earth 37 times in this 54.5-hour mission. It was the first US manned orbital space flight since the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project on July 15, 1975, and one of the few manned maiden test flight of a new spacecraft system although it was the culmination of sub-orbital and atmospheric testing.
The first launch of the Space Shuttle occurred on April 12, 1981, exactly 20 years after the first manned space flight, when the orbiter Columbia, with two crew members, astronauts John W. Young, commander, and Robert L. Crippen, pilot, lifted off from Pad A, Launch Complex 39, at the Kennedy Space Center — the first of 24 launches from Pad A. It was exactly 7 a.m. EST. A launch attempt 2 days earlier was scrubbed because of a timing problem in one of the Columbia’s general purpose computers.
Not only was this the first launch of the Space...
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