Space Shuttle Discovery

Discovery space shuttle landing at Dulles airport on your final flight. The transport was to be exhibited at the Udvar-Hazy Center Museum of Air and Space.

The space shuttle Discovery (NASA designation: OV-103) is one of three spacecraft to remain in NASA's space shuttle fleet, along with Atlantis and Endeavour. Discovery was the oldest orbiter still in service and performed a variety of satellite assembly and research missions, as well as International Space Station (ISS) construction missions.

The ship's name comes from the exploration ship HMS Discovery, which accompanied James Cook's HMS Resolution on her third and final voyage. Other vessels share the same name, such as Henry Hudson's Discovery, which between 1610 and 1611 sought the Northwest Passage; and Scott and Shackleton's RRS Discovery which was used on their Antarctic voyages from 1901-1904. In addition, the shuttle shares its name with the fictional ship Discovery One from the movie 2001: A Space Odyssey.

Discovery was the shuttle that launched the Hubble Space Telescope. The second and third Hubble servicing missions were also carried out by Discovery. It also launched the Ulysses probe and three TDRS satellites. Discovery has been chosen twice as the orbiter to return to space, the first in 1988 as a return after the Challenger spacecraft accident in 1986 and, later, in a double return in July 2005 and July 2006 after the spacecraft accident. Shuttle Columbia of 2003. The shuttle also carried Mercury Program astronaut John Glenn, who was 77 years old at the time, making him the oldest person in space.

Flights

The shuttle Discovery completed a total of 39 missions. It is the shuttle that has carried out the most missions among all space shuttles.

Table of missions

Tribute and Mission Badges

NASA Tribute by Discovery Space Shuttle
Mission badge for Discovery mission flights
STS-41-D	STS-51-A	STS-51-C	STS-51-D	STS-51-G	STS-51-I	STS-26	STS-29
STS-33	STS-31	STS-41	STS-39	STS-48	STS-42	STS-53	STS-56
STS-51	STS-60	STS-64	STS-63	STS-70	STS-82	STS-85	STS-91
STS-95	STS-96	STS-103	STS-92	STS-102	STS-105	STS-114	STS-121
STS-116	STS-120	STS-124	STS-119	STS-128	STS-131	STS-133

End of the space race

With the background of a blue and white land, the Discovery space shuttle is offered in this image photographed by a crew member of the expedition 16 after the shuttle disconnected from the International Space Station. At the beginning of the STS-120 mission and Expedition 16 crew arrived at the conclusion of 11 days of cooperative work on board the ferry and the station. The decoupling of the two ships occurred to the 04:32 a. m. (CST) on 5 November 2007.

Like the three remaining shuttles (Endeavour, Atlantis and this one), it is out of service after the shuttles were canceled in 2011. Its last flight was the STS-133 mission, from February 24 to March 9, 2011, which was successful, aimed at installing a new storage module and a humanoid robot. This module, which was permanently connected to the station, offers an additional volume of storage under pressure.

"This legend was in space for 365 days," they reported from the NASA Control Center in Houston (South Texas), adding that, with its 39 missions, Discovery traveled almost 149 million miles (241 million kilometers).

The craft is now in the Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center, an annex of the Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum in Washington, D.C.