Space Shuttle Discovery makes its last flight

Space Shuttle Discovery has made its last flight, piggybacking on a Boeing 747, from Nasa’s launch site at Cape Canaveral in Florida to Washington before it becomes part of the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum collection.

The United States retired its space shuttle fleet last year, marking the end of a space programme which was formally launched in 1972.

The first shuttle Enterprise, which was given its name after a succesful campaign by fans of TV show Star Trek, was used to carry out glide approach and landing tests.

Columbia became the first shuttle to successfully reach orbit in April 1981, and the Space Shuttle programme went on to catch the imagination of the world, flying 133 succesful mission.

But the Space Shuttle will also be remembered for the two unsuccessful missions in the programme.

On 28 January, 1986, Challenger disintegrated 73 seconds after launch due to the failure of the right solid rocket booster, killing all seven astronauts on board.

Then, on 1 February, 2003, Columbia broke up during re-entry, killing its crew of seven, because of damage to the leading edge of the wing caused during launch.

While Discovery, which had completed 39 missions, the most of all the fleet, will go on display at the Smithsonian’s Virginia annexe, Atlantis will be on display at the Kennedy Space Centre Visitor Complex, near Cape Canaveral, Endeavour will be delivered to the California Science Centre in Los Angeles and Enterprise, which is currently on display in Virgnia, will be moved to the Intrepid Sea-Air-Space Museum in New York.

“It’s sad to see this happening,” said Nasa astronaut Nicole

Stott, a member of Discovery’s final crew.

“But you look at it and you just can’t help but be impressed by it. That’s my hope now, that every time someone looks at that vehicle they are impressed, that they feel that this is what we can do when we challenge ourselves.”

“We need to preserve our history for future generations and send these off to museums to remember what we did,” said Steven Lindsey, the commander of the last Discovery crew who is now working with Sierra Nevada Corporation, one of several firms developing commercial space taxis for Nasa, to service the International Space Station.

“All the lessons learned from shuttle, we’re using in the

design of our spacecraft. We’re updating the technologies, but the basic principles are the same. Every programme builds on the previous programme.”

Nas now hopes to develop vehicles which will take astronauts further into space than the orbital misssions that the Space Shuttle programme carried out.