On 29 November 1972, NASA Administrator James Fletcher abolished the Space Station Task Force formed in early 1969 by his predecessor, Thomas Paine, and formed the Sortie Lab Task Force. The "sortie ...

It doesn't seem out of place today, but the sight 30 years ago of a cylindrical module mounted inside the space shuttle's cargo bay was described as an "odd-appearing assemblage" in 1983. Subscribe to ...

Thirty years ago this week the first European-built Spacelab was launched on the Space Shuttle. ESA’s first astronaut, Ulf Merbold, flew on the mission, marking ESA’s entry into human spaceflight. On ...

Analysis of data from a 1985 shuttle Spacelab mission revealed a mysterious X-ray “glow” around the core of the Milky Way galaxy and “revolutionized” knowledge about the sun’s atomic furnace, ...

[Ken Shirriff] does some of the most interesting teardowns. This time, he’s looking at a French-built minicomputer called the Mitra 125 MS from around 1980. In particular, it was the computer inside ...

After 30 years of service, NASA's fleet of three space shuttles is standing down for good. The final shuttle mission planned, the STS-135 launch of Atlantis, is scheduled for July 8. After that, the ...

SAN FRANCISCO — From the satellites it sent out across the solar system to the vast array of on-board experiments housed in its cargo bays, the space shuttle contributed to innumerable discoveries in ...

NASA's space shuttle program, officially dubbed the Space Transportation System (STS), built upon the legacy of the Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo programs with a goal of developing the first reusable ...

Dr James Pawelczyk flew aboard the 1998 NASA STS-90 Space Shuttle mission as a Payload Specialist. During his 16-day Spacelab flight, he and six other crew members orbited the Earth 256 times, ...

When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission. Here’s how it works. It doesn't seem out of place today, but the sight 30 years ago of a cylindrical module mounted ...