2-860-573 - Heritage Space/Heritage Images

First Space Shuttle Mission launches, Florida, USA, April 12, 1981. Space Shuttle Columbia and STS-1 lift off from NASA's Kennedy Space Center, marking the first flight of the Space Shuttle Program. Columbia's 36-orbit flight tested the vehicle's performance as a reusable spacecraft. The orbiter successfully returned to Earth two days later, and for the next 30 years the program's five spacecraft carried people into orbit repeatedly, launched, recovered and repaired satellites, conducted cutting-edge research and built the largest structure in space, the International Space Station. NASA Marshall Space Flight Center's Payload Operations Integration Center served as "science central" for the space station, working 24/7, 365 days a year in support of the orbiting laboratory's scientific experiments.