Space Shuttle Launches

April 12, 1981

Columbia

John Young, Robert Crippen

April 14, 1981

First space shuttle launch

April 4, 1983

Challenger

Paul Weitz, Karol Bobko, Donald Peterson, Story Musgrave

April 9, 1983

First  launch of space shuttle Challenger

June 18, 1983

Challenger

Robert Crippen, Frederick H. Hauck, John Fabian, Sally Ride, Norman E. Thagard

June 24, 1983

First American woman in space (Sally Ride)

Aug. 30, 1983

Challenger

Richard Truly, Daniel Brandenstein, Dale Gardner, Guion Bluford, William  Thornton

Sept.  5, 1983

First African-American in space (Guion Bluford). First shuttle night launch and night landing.

Oct.  3, 1985

Atlantis

Karol Bobko, Ronald Grabe, Robert Stewart, David Hilmers, William Pailes

Oct. 7, 1985

First launch of space shuttle Atlantis

Jan. 28, 1986

Challenger

Francis "Dick" Scobee , Michael Smith, Ellison Onizuka, Judith Resnik, Ronald McNair, Gregory Jarvis, Christa McAuliffe

--

Challenger destroyed 73 seconds after launch; crew lost

Sept. 29, 1988

Discovery

Frederick Hauck, Richard Covey, John M. Lounge, George  Nelson, David Hilmers

Oct. 3, 1988

Return to flight

May 4, 1989

Atlantis

David Walker, Ronald Grabe, Norman Thagard, Mary Cleave, Mark Lee

May 8, 1989

Deployed Magellan probe bound for Venus

Oct.  18, 1989

Atlantis

Donald Williams, Michael McCulley, Ellen Baker, Franklin Chang-Diaz, Shannon Lucid

Oct. 23, 1989

Deployed Galileo probe bound for Jupiter

April 24, 1990

Discovery

Loren Shriver, Charles  Bolden, Steven Hawley, Bruce McCandless II, Kathryn Sullivan

April  29, 1990

Deployed Hubble Space Telescope

April 5, 1991

Atlantis

Steve Nagel, Kenneth Cameron, Jay Apt, Linda Godwin, Jerry Ross

April 11, 1991

Deployed Compton Gamma Ray Observatory

May 7, 1992

Endeavour

Daniel Brandenstein, Kevin Chilton, Bruce Melnick, Thomas  Akers, Richard  Hieb, Pierre Thuot, Kathryn Thornton

May 16, 1992

First launch of space shuttle Endeavour

Feb. 3, 1994

Discovery

Charles Bolden, Kenneth Reightler, Franklin Chang-Diaz, N. Jan Davis, Ronald Sega, Sergei Krikalev

Feb. 11, 1994

1st shuttle-Mir Mission; first Russian to launch aboard a shuttle  (Sergei Krikalev)

Feb. 3, 1995

Discovery 

James Wetherbee, Eileen Collins, Bernard Harris, Janice Voss, Michael Foale, Vladimir Titov

Feb. 11, 1995

2nd shuttle-Mir mission - 1st rendezvous

June 27, 1995

Atlantis

Robert Gibson, Charles Precourt, Ellen Baker, Gregory Harbaugh, Bonnie Dunbar; Up to Mir: Anatoly Solovyev,  Nikolai Budarin; Down from Mir:

Norman Thagard, Vladimir Dezhurov, Gennady Strekalov

July 7,  1995

1st shuttle – Mir docking, 100th U.S. crewed spaceflight

Dec.  4, 1998

Endeavour

Robert Cabana, Frederick Sturckow, Nancy Currie, Jerry Ross, James Newman, Sergei Krikalev

Dec. 15, 1998

1st International Space Station assembly mission; assembled Unity module, the first U.S. component on ISS .

June 2, 1998

Discovery

Charlies Precourt, Dominic Gorie, Wendy Lawrence, Franklin Chang-Diaz, Janet Kavandi, Valery Ryumin;  Down from Mir: Andrew Thomas  

June 12, 1998

11th shuttle-Mir mission  - 9th

and final docking

July 23, 1999

Columbia

Eileen Collins, Jeffrey Ashby, Steven Hawley, Catherine Coleman, Michel Tognini

July 27, 1999

First female shuttle commander (Eileen Collins); deployed Chandra X-ray Observatory

Jan. 16, 2003

Columbia

Rick Husband, William McCool, David Brown, Laurel Clark, Kalpana Chawla, Michael Anderson, Ilan Ramon

--

Columbia disintegrated during re-entry on Feb. 1; crew lost.

July 26, 2005

Discovery

Eileen Collins, Jim Kelly, Stephen Robinson, Andrew Thomas, Charlie Camarda, Wendy Lawrence, Soichi Noguchi

Aug. 9, 2005

 Return to flight

Feb. 24, 2011

Discovery

Steven Lindsey, Eric Boe, Alvin Drew, Michael Barratt, Stephen Bowen, Nicole Stott

March 9, 2011

Final launch of space shuttle Discovery

May 16, 2011

Endeavour

Mark Kelly, Gregory Johnson, Greg Chamitoff, Andrew Feustel, Michael Fincke, Roberto Vittori

June 1, 2011

Final launch of space shuttle Endeavour

July 8, 2011

Atlantis

Chris Ferguson, Doug Hurley, Sandy Magnus, Rex Walheim

July 21, 2011

Final launch of the space shuttle program