Launch of STS-1

STS-1 was the first orbital flight of the Space Shuttle, flown by Columbia with John Young as commander and Robert Crippen as pilot, and launched twenty years after Yuri Gagarin's first flight into space. It was the first time that a crewed spacecraft was launched on its first flight without earlier uncrewed tests. The mission lasted about two days and tested the launch, orbit and re-entry of the new winged vehicle, which landed on a runway at Edwards Air Force Base in California like an aircraft. Some tiles of the thermal protection system were lost during launch but the orbiter returned safely. It began a programme that lasted thirty years.

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