Old Cape Canaveral
Shuttle

The Shuttle era, 1981 to 2011

The Space Shuttle flew 135 missions between April 12, 1981, and July 21, 2011, all launched from Launch Complex 39 at Kennedy Space Center, next door to the cape. Two orbiters and fourteen astronauts were lost, on Challenger in 1986 and Columbia in 2003.

By The Old Cape Canaveral Team Updated October 15, 2026
A night-time timed exposure of Space Shuttle Columbia on Launch Pad 39A before STS-1.
Columbia on Pad A at Launch Complex 39 before the first Shuttle mission, STS-1, March 5, 1981. NASA/KSC via Wikimedia Commons. Public domain.

The Space Shuttle flew 135 missions, NASA counts, from its first launch on April 12, 1981, to its last landing on July 21, 2011. Every one of them was launched from Launch Complex 39 at Kennedy Space Center on Merritt Island, not from the Air Force station on the cape itself, though the cape’s Eastern Range supported them and Port Canaveral brought their boosters home.

First and last

STS-1 lifted off from Pad 39A with astronauts Young and Crippen aboard Columbia, according to NASA’s table of Shuttle launches. The fleet grew to five orbiters that flew in space: Columbia, Challenger, Discovery, Atlantis and Endeavour. Over thirty years they launched, recovered and repaired satellites and built the International Space Station. The last mission, STS-135, launched from Pad 39A on July 8, 2011, with Ferguson, Hurley, Magnus and Walheim aboard, and ended when Atlantis rolled to a stop at Kennedy Space Center on July 21.

Space Shuttle Atlantis on Launch Pad 39A after the rotating service structure was rolled back.
Atlantis on Pad 39A after the service structure was rolled back, July 7, 2011, the day before the last Shuttle launch. NASA/Bill Ingalls via Wikimedia Commons. Public domain.

Challenger, January 28, 1986

STS-51L would have been the 25th Shuttle mission. Challenger lifted off from Pad 39B on January 28, 1986, and was lost in an explosion 73 seconds later. NASA’s investigation found the cause in an O-ring failure in the right solid rocket booster, aggravated by extreme cold in Florida before the launch. The crew were Francis R. Scobee, Michael J. Smith, Ronald E. McNair, Ellison S. Onizuka, Judith A. Resnik, Gregory B. Jarvis and Christa McAuliffe.

The seven members of the STS-51L crew in their official portrait.
The STS-51L crew in their official portrait, November 15, 1985. NASA via Wikimedia Commons. Public domain.

Columbia, February 1, 2003

STS-107, the 113th Shuttle flight and Columbia’s 28th, launched on January 16, 2003, on a 16-day research mission. On February 1, on its way to land at Kennedy Space Center, Columbia was lost during reentry over East Texas at about 9 a.m. EST, 16 minutes before its scheduled touchdown. Nearly 85,000 pieces of debris were shipped to Kennedy, where about 38 percent of the orbiter was eventually recovered. The crew were Rick D. Husband, William C. McCool, Michael P. Anderson, Kalpana Chawla, David M. Brown, Laurel B. Clark and Ilan Ramon of Israel.

The cape’s part

The Air Force units at the cape supported NASA launches from Kennedy throughout, through the Eastern Range, and the Space Force’s heritage history lists the Shuttle among the NASA vehicles it supported. The solid rocket boosters, recovered at sea after each launch, came back to the space center by way of Port Canaveral, according to the port authority. After the Shuttle, American crews did not launch from Florida again until 2020, as our SpaceX page covers.

Further Reading

  • Live from Cape Canaveral by Jay Barbree

Sources

  1. NASA, Space Shuttle
  2. NASA, Kennedy Space Center, Space Shuttle Launches, 1981 to 2011 (KSC Historical Report 1B)
  3. NASA, STS-51L
  4. NASA, STS-107
  5. Canaveral Port Authority, Port History

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