With today ’s last Space Shuttle flight , we ’ve get through the end of an era in American space exploration . In this gallery , we wait back on 30 years of the Space Shuttle program : the mantrap of our place outpost , the engineering wonder of the Shuttles , and the brave sacrifices many people made to leave this solemnity well . It ’s been a good discharge , NASA . A really good running game .
Here you’re able to see the first Space Shuttle , Enterprise , as it film flight for the first clip over the Dryden Flight Research Facility in 1977 ( AP ) .
Space Shuttle Columbia at the Kennedy Launch Complex , 1980 ( Flickr / State Archives of Florida )
Senator John Stennis celebrates a successful test of the Space Shuttle ’s main locomotive engine , October 1978 ( Flickr / NASA )
Columbia , followed by a chase plane , as it lands at Edwards Air Force Base , April 1981 ( AP )
Sally Ride , the first distaff American spaceman , speaking with earth control on the shuttle Challenger , June 1983
( Flickr / NASA )
Astronaut Bruce McCandless II , approximately 300 feet from Challenger , as he takes the first untethered space walk in history , February 9 , 1984 ( AP )
Challenger explodes 73 second after liftoff , January 28th , 1986 ( AP )
Reaction to the Challenger disaster , Concord , New Hampshire , January 28th , 1986 ( AP )
The robot arm of Discovery maneuver the Hubble Space Telescope outside of the bird payload bay , 1990 ( AP )
Endeavour captures the Wake Shield Facility , an observational scientific discipline chopine , after it was caught in solar winds for two day in September 1995 ( AP )
Space Shuttle Columbia as it journeys from the Vehicle Assembly unit to the launch pad at Kennedy Space Center , March 1998 ( AP )
Senator John Glenn , Jr. , returns to space as a a Payload Specialist aboard the bird Discovery , October 1998 ( AP / NASA )
Columbia lands at the completion of a two million mile journey wherein the crew deploy the Chandra X - ray of light Observatory , July 1999 ( Getty )
A picture of the crew of Columbia during delegacy STS-107 , from a roll of unexploited picture show rule in the bird ’s debris , 2003 ( AP / NASA )
streak in the sky as Space Shuttle Columbia disintegrates upon re - incoming , February 1 , 2003 ( AP )
Discovery gang phallus , on the first shuttle flight of stairs in almost three class , lead an in - flight fixing of caloric roofing tile on the underside of the Discovery , August 2005 ( AP )
Lifting Atlantis within the Vehicle Assembly Building at the Kennedy Space Center in preparation for a September launch , July 24 , 2006 ( AP )
Space Shuttle Atlantis leave a stripe of light as it passes overhead . Photo taken on September 20 , 2006 in Tyler , Texas , where the initial disintegration of Columbia took place in 2003 . ( AP / Dr. Scott Lieberman )
Launch Control at Kennedy Space Center during an Atlantis launch , September 2006 ( Flickr / NASA )
Atlantis land at Cape Canaveral at the conclusion of a 12 day commission , September 21 , 2006 ( AP )
Atlantis cook to bob with the International Space Station , June 2007 ( AP )
The International Space Station as seen in the reflection of Astronaut Scott Parazynski ’s eyeshade during a space walk outside of shuttle Discovery , October 30 , 2007 ( AP )
simulacrum assume at Banana River viewing site near Kennedy Space Center as Discovery exit a trail after launch , 2009 ( Flickr / NASA )
Atlantis departs for the final service of the Hubble Space Telescope , May 2009 ( AP )
One of the personal effects remove aboard by Commander Mark Kelly , a baseball , float in the cabin of Endeavour , May 2010 ( AP )
find en route to the International Space Station , August 2010 ( Flickr / NASA )
Astronauts Mastracchio and Anderson in the payload of Discovery on a foreign mission to perform sustenance workplace on the International Space System , 2010 ( AP )
Memorial for Challenger crew member Ellison Onizuka , 2011 ( AP )
Discovery , ready for its final mission , is rotated on the launch pad to expose the satellite , February 2011 ( AP )
Discovery , on its last deputation , as the shuttle prepares to dock with the International Space Station , February 2011 ( AP )
The crew of Atlantis is transported to a dress dry run for the last mission of NASA ’s Space Shuttle Program , March 2011 ( AP )
Endeavour sits on the launch pad in April 2011 prior to its last launching in May 2011 ( AP )
Atlantis moves from the Vertical Assembly Building to the launching pad in May of 2011 in homework for a July launching ( AP )
Mission Control at the Johnson Space Center in Houston during a simulation of the last Atlantis mission , 2011 ( AP )
The sunshine , a portion of the International Space State , and Earth can be seen during a spacewalk taken on the last flight of steps of Endeavour , May 27 , 2011 ( AP )
A view of Discovery ’s payload Laurus nobilis as it is being decommission and decontaminated in June 2011 ( AP )
mitt made preindication attached to a warhead cannister destined for the concluding escape of Atlantis , June 10 , 2011 ( AP )
Atlantis , as it sit around on the launching digs on June 17 , 2011 in preparation the Shuttle Program ’s concluding flight in July 2011 , in which it will carry spare portion and supplies to the International Space Station ( AP )
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