Space Shuttle
National Aeronautics and Space Administration · Reusable · Retired
The Space Shuttle is a retired, partially reusable low Earth orbital spacecraft system operated from 1981 to 2011 by the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) as part of the Space Shuttle program. Its official program name was Space Transportation System (STS). Five complete Space Shuttle orbiter vehicles were built and flown on a total of 135 missions from 1981 to 2011.
Specifications
- Thrust
- 28,200 kN
- Height
- 56.1 m
- Diameter
- 8 m
- Launch mass
- 2,030 t
- Stages
- 2
- Launch cost
- $450M
- LEO capacity
- 27,500 kg
- GTO capacity
- —
- GEO capacity
- —
- SSO capacity
- —
Vehicle specifications from Launch Library; blanks are unpublished figures.
Flight record
Flights
135
Launches with a definitive outcome
Success rate
98.5%
133 of 135
Current success streak
22
Landings
0
0 attempts · 0 droneship / 0 RTLS
Fastest turnaround
—
Between consecutive booster flights
Counted from padside's own launch record — the same basis as the Stats page.