Space Shuttle - Retirement

Retirement

NASA retired the Space Shuttle in 2011, after 30 years of service. The Shuttle was originally conceived of and presented to the public as a 'Space Truck' which would, among other things, be used to build a United States space station in low earth orbit in the early-1990s. When the U.S. space station evolved into the International Space Station project, which suffered from long delays and design changes before it could be completed, the service life of the Space Shuttle was extended several times until 2011 – serving at least 15 years longer than it was originally designed to do. Discovery was the first of NASA's three remaining operational Space Shuttles to be retired.

The final Space Shuttle mission was originally scheduled for late 2010, but the program was later extended to July 2011 when Michael Suffredini of the ISS program said that one additional trip was needed in 2011 to deliver parts to the International Space Station. The Shuttle's final mission consisted of just four astronauts—Christopher Ferguson (Commander), Douglas Hurley (Pilot), Sandra Magnus (Mission Specialist 1), and Rex Walheim (Mission Specialist 2); they conducted the 135th and last space Shuttle mission on board Atlantis, which launched on July 8, 2011 and landed safely at the Kennedy Space Center on July 21, 2011 at 5:57 AM EDT (09:57 UTC).