NASA is holding to its target launch date for the Space Shuttle Atlantis, even as rainy weather threatens to delay the space shuttle from blasting off until the weekend. As Jason Samenow reported: A ...

The Space Shuttle was operated by NASA for 30 years, with its last flight occurring in 2011.

First launch: Columbia becomes the first shuttle in space on April 12, 1981. First insects: Moths, flies and bees become the first insects to ride the shuttle in 1982, in an experiment designed by a ...

The space shuttle era was a time of many firsts for space exploration. Most prominently, it marked the regular usage of the first reusable spacecraft to carry humans into low Earth orbit. In its ...