STS-1 Launch, Columbia (April 12, 1981)

STS-1 Mission: First Shuttle Mission/Shuttle Systems Test Flight
Space Shuttle: Columbia
Launch Pad: 39A
Launched: April 12, 1981 at 7:00:03 a.m. EST
Launch Weight: 219,258 pounds
Landing Site: Edwards Air Force Base, Calif.
Landing: April 14, 1981 at 10:20:57 a.m. PST
Runway: 23
Rollout Distance: 8,993 feet
Rollout Time: 60 seconds
Revolution: 37
Mission Duration: 2 days, 6 hours, 20 minutes, and 53 seconds
Returned to KSC: April 28, 1981
Orbit Altitude: 166 nautical miles
Orbit Inclination: 40.3 degrees
Miles Traveled: 1.074 million

Mission Objectives

Demonstrate safe launch into orbit and safe return of the orbiter and crew. Verify the combined performance of the entire shuttle vehicle - orbiter, solid rocket boosters and external tank.

Payloads included the Developmental Flight Instrumentation (DFI) and the Aerodynamic Coefficient Identifications Package (ACIP) pallet containing equipment for recording temperatures, pressures and acceleration levels at various points on the vehicle.

Mission Highlights

Major systems tested successfully on first flight of Space Transportation System. Orbiter sustained tile damage on launch and from overpressure wave created by the solid rocket boosters. Subsequent modifications to the water sound suppression system eliminated the problem. A total of sixteen tiles were lost and 148 tiles were damaged.

NASA's John F. Kennedy Space Center

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[DLOColumbia107]

God Bless Columbia....

[johnross12]

@rockfilmers Too bad we can't cancel Obama.

[frogger626]

@oriole4008 How is cancelling the shuttle program preventing a Mars mission? Shuttle was in no way capable of going to Mars. We needed a new, safer, more powerful system to boost that sort of tonnage out that far.

[krashdown102]

go baby go

[preving]

@furgee When Obama came into office, the economy was shredding 800k jobs a month. The unemployment rate peaked at 10.1% during the first few months of his presidency BEFORE his policies were able to go into effect. Since then, the unemployment rate has dropped 1% and the economy has added something like 2.5 million jobs since he took office.

[furgee]

@oriole4008 Cuz he is a moron

[wcmi92]

I watched this myself... On Saturday morning... I was 9 years old... I only wondered when they'd reach the moon. Which was wrong.

[wcmi92]

Young and Crippen ARE great Americans.

[oriole4008]

retiring the space shuttle is stupid. at least we get to see them in the museums

[oriole4008]

Obama says were going to mars. how does he say that when hes preventing it?

[don312000]

@kineticdeath amazing that it's from the same launch pad!!

[tack534]

@rockfilmers He also reduced their budget to something like $2 billion. So instead of cutting funding from things that should be cut, like social security for example, he decides to gut NASA. Great move... -_-