Later that year, they also launched another Hubble Telescope servicing mission, spending eight days in space with more than 24 hours of spacewalks. In 1999, Discovery and her crew spent six days on the fledgling station. In 1998, the shuttle program finally started work on its original mission - building the space station that would later be known as the ISS. The same year, a nest of woodpeckers delayed the 70th shuttle launch by drilling more than 200 holes into the Discovery’s fuel tank insulation over Memorial Day weekend. In 1995, Discovery launched and docked with the Russian MIR space station. In 1993, STS-61 launched for the first Hubble service mission and had five back-to-back spacewalks to improve the photo quality of the telescope. In 1990, the Discovery deployed the Hubble Space Telescope, which is still used for deep space observation today. 29, 1988, was redesigned to prevent the problem that caused the Challenger disaster. The solid rocket booster on the Discovery, which launched on Sept. All seven members of the crew were killed, and flights were suspended for two years. 28, 1986, a few minutes after its launch. The ’80s also saw one of the greatest tragedies in the history of human spaceflight. This mission was also the first one where the shuttle landed at its launch site at Kennedy Space Center.ĭuring the 1980s, the space program also got three more shuttles - Challenger, Discovery and Atlantis. In 1984, astronauts carried out the first untethered space flight during Challenger’s fourth flight. Previous manned spacecraft relied on capsules that would end up in the ocean and couldn’t be reused. The shuttle could then glide in and land on a runway just like an airplane. The tank and boosters would drop off during takeoff, leaving the shuttle to perform its maneuvers. The shuttle used two rocket boosters to lift it and its massive external fuel tank into orbit. Dubbed STS-1, this pilot mission featured two astronauts - John Young, who had previously walked on the moon, and Bob Crippen, a Navy test pilot. On April 12, 1981, the Columbia launched into orbit from Kennedy Space Center. This decade saw the first launch of the NASA space shuttle program.