History
Constructiin began on Columbia around 1975 primarily in Palmdale, California. Columbia was known as fallowing a Boston-based sloop Columbia captained by American Robert Gray, which explored a Pacific Northwest & became a number one Western vessel to circumnavigate the world; the title as well honored Columbia, a Command Module of Apollo 11. When construction, a artificial satellite arrived at John F. Kennedy Space Center on March 25, 1979 to prepare for its first launch. In March 19, 1981 during preparations for a ground line 2 text, five workers were asphyxiated during a nitrogen purge, resulting within both deaths.

A number 1 flight of Columbia (STS-1) was commanded by John Young (a space veteran from the Gemini and Apollo eras) and piloted by Robert Crippen, a rookie who had never been in space before, but who served as a support crew member for the Skylab missions and Apollo-Soyuz. It launched April 12, 1981 & returned April 14, 1981 fallowing orbiting a globe 36 days.

Within 1983, Columbia launched the number one mission (STS-9) with Vi spaceman, including the foremost nin-Western spaceman on a space shuttle, Ulf Merbold. In January 12, 1986 Columbia took off with a number one Hispanic American astronaut, Dr. Franklin R. Chang-Diaz, as well as the first sitting member of the House of Representatives in space, Bill Nelson. An additional number 1 was announced in March 5, 1998 when NASA named their guide of U.S. Air Force Lt. Gap. Eileen Collins as commander of a first Columbia mission making Collins the number 1 woman commander of a space shuttle mission.

Final mission

Independent article: Space Shuttle Columbia disaster

In its final mission, a craft was carrying a number one Israeli astronaut, Ilan Ramon, and a foremost female spaceman of Indian birth, Kalpana Chawla. More crewman on the final flight included Rick Husband (commander), Willie McCool (pilot), Michael P. Anderson, Laurel Clark, and David M. Brown.

On the morning of February 1, 2003, the shuttle re-entered the atmosphere when a Xvi-day scientific mission. NASA lost radio contact at astir Ennead the.m. EST, only minutes prior to the required 09:16 a.m. landing at Kennedy Space Center inside Florida. Video indicate a craft breaking higher inside fire all over Texas, at an altitude of approximately 39 miles (63 kilometer) & the speed of 12,500 mph (Five.Six km/s).

In the months as a result the tragedy, NASA man of science determined that a hole was punctured in the leading edge in one of ''Columbia's wings, processed of the Carbon-Carbon composite. a hole experienced formed after a piece of insulating foam from either a external fuel tank peeled off in a period of the launch Sixteen years sooner, puncturing the edge of the wing. Hot ionised gases, known as plasma, entered a interior of a wing, destroying a trend lines structure & stimulating the rest of the shuttle to break apart when you took the acute heat of re-entry.

A gathered detritus of a vessel come presently stored in a Vehicle Assembly Building at the Kennedy Space Center; recovered things come now and again loaned for locate into the hypersonic flight regime.

Flights
Space Shuttle Columbia'' flew Xxviii flights, spent 300.74-years inside space, completed 4,808 orbits, & flew 125,204,911 miles around sum, including its final mission.