Space Shuttle orbiter Space Shuttle orbiter The Space Shuttle orbiter was the spaceplane component of the Space Shuttle, a partially reusable orbital spacecraft system that was part of the Space Shuttle program. Operated by NASA, the U.S. space agency, this vehicle could carry astronauts and payloads into low Earth orbit, perform in-space operations, then re-enter the atmosphere and land as a glider, returning its crew and any on-board payload to the Earth. Six orbiters were built for flight: "Enterprise", "Columbia", "Challenger", "Discovery", "Atlantis", and "Endeavour". All were built in Palmdale, California, by the Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania-based Rockwell International company. The first orbiter, "Enterprise", made
Space Shuttle of "Atlantis"s final flight on July 21, 2011. The U.S. has since relied primarily on the Russian Soyuz spacecraft to transport astronauts to the International Space Station. The Space Shuttle was a partially reusable human spaceflight vehicle capable of reaching low Earth orbit, commissioned and operated by the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) from 1981 to 2011. It resulted from shuttle design studies conducted by NASA and the U.S. Air Force in the 1960s and was first proposed for development as part of an ambitious second-generation Space Transportation System (STS) of space vehicles to follow the Apollo program