As I Live and Learn
 

Friday, June 29, 2007

Shuttles, To Go

NASA has three space shuttles left: Atlantis (built 1985), Discovery (built 1983), and Endeavour (Challenger's replacement, built 1991). By 2010 they will all be decommissioned. The new fleet of shuttles is supposed to be ready no later than 2014, but hopefully as early as 2011. It'd be bad to not be in space for three years.

Atlantis is going away this year. That's because it's scheduled this year for a maintenance that takes two years, and so by the time it's back in service it'll be nearly time to decommission it!

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/02/21/tech/main1335355.shtml

FYI:
NASA had five space shuttles in the fleet, though not all at the same time. The other two in addition to the above three are Columbia (1979 - 2003) and Challenger (1979 - 1983).

Also, Challenger was originally STA-099 (1972 - 1978), one of two test vehicles for the Space Shuttle program. The other test vehicle was supposed to be named Constitution, but a write in campaign got it named Enterprise! Though that one never was converted for space flight.

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