Lockheed Martin Space Systems "Columbia" launched on January 12, 1986, Bob Cenker became RCA Astro-Electronic's first astronaut. Following the destruction of "Space Shuttle Challenger" with the next Shuttle mission, civilian Payload Specialists were excluded from flying Shuttle missions until 1990. By that time, RCA had been purchased by General Electric, and RCA Astro-Electronics became part of GE. As a result, Cenker was the only RCA Astro-Electronics employee, and only employee in the history of the facility under all of its subsequent names, to ever fly in space. The facility operated as GE Astro Space until it was sold to Martin Marietta in 1993. Then
Space Shuttle retirement to 2028 or beyond. Until another U.S. crew vehicle is ready, crews will access the ISS exclusively aboard the Russian Soyuz spacecraft. The Soyuz was chosen as the ISS lifeboat during the development of the International Space Station, and has been one of the space taxis used by the international participants to this program. A Soyuz took Expedition 1, which included one U.S. astronaut in the year 2000. Previously the United States and Russia had collaborated on extended the Mir space station with the Shuttle-Mir program in the 1990s. Although the Orion spacecraft is oriented towards deep-space missions such as