Space Shuttle Discovery March 9, having spent a cumulative total of almost a full year in space. "Discovery" performed both research and International Space Station (ISS) assembly missions. It also carried the Hubble Space Telescope into orbit. "Discovery" was the first operational shuttle to be retired, followed by "Endeavour" and then "Atlantis". The name "Discovery" was chosen to carry on a tradition based on ships of exploration, primarily , one of the ships commanded by Captain James Cook during his third and final major voyage from 1776 to 1779, and Henry Hudson's , which was used in 1610–1611 to explore Hudson Bay and
Space Shuttle Columbia disaster to the crew. A Department of Defense school in Guam was renamed Commander William C. McCool Elementary School. The City of Palmdale, California, the birthplace of the entire shuttle fleet, changed the name of the thoroughfare Avenue M to Columbia Way. In Avondale, Arizona, the Avondale Elementary School where Michael Anderson's sister worked had sent a T-shirt with him into space. It was supposed to have an assembly when he returned from space. The school was later renamed Michael Anderson Elementary. The first dedicated meteorological satellite launched by the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) on 2 September 2002, named Metsat-1,