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The Space Shuttle was a partially reusable low Earth orbital spacecraft system that was operated from 1981 to 2011 by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) as part of the Space Shuttle program. Its official program name was Space Transportation System (STS), taken from a 1969 plan for a system of reusable spacecraft of which it was the only item funded for development. The first of four orbital test flights occurred in 1981, leading to operational flights beginning in 1982. Throughout its lifetime, the Space Shuttle was used to conduct scientific research, deploy commercial, military and scientific payloads (including the Hubble Telescope) and was involved in the construction and operation of the Mir space station and the ISS (International Space Station).

The Space Shuttle Orbiters were:   1) Enterprise (launched from a modified 747)   2) Columbia (disintegrated as it re-entered the atmosphere on Feb 1, 2003)   3) Challenger (broke apart 73 seconds into its flight on Jan 28, 1986)   4) Discovery (spent a cumulative near full year in space in 39 missions)   5) Atlantis (flew the final space shuttle mission, launched on July 8, 2011)   6) Endeavour (built to replace Challenger in 1991)

Between them, they flew a total of 135 Missions from 1981 to 2011 and the total mission time was: 1322 days, 19 hours, 21 minutes and 23 seconds. Each orbiter was designed to be reflown as many as 100 times. 355 individual astronauts and cosmonauts flew on shuttle missions -- 306 men and 49 women from 16 different countries. 14 crew members died in the Challenger and Columbia disasters. The Space Shuttle program sent more than 3 million pounds of cargo into space.

The Space Shuttle retirement was announced in January 2004. President George W. Bush announced his Vision for Space Exploration, which called for the retirement of the Space Shuttle once it completed construction of the ISS (International Space Station).