There were 135 Space Shuttle flights in NASA’s Space Shuttle program, flown between 1981 and 2011.

Key numbers

  • Total shuttle missions: 135 flights from STS-1 in 1981 to STS-135 in 2011.
  • Total flight time: About 1,322 to 1,330 days in orbit, depending on how it is rounded in various summaries.
  • Astronauts flown: 355 different people, making 852 total crew appearances across all missions.

Quick context

The Space Shuttle was NASA’s reusable spacecraft fleet that operated for three decades, assembling much of the International Space Station and launching major science missions like Hubble servicing flights.

From the first launch of Columbia in April 1981 to the final landing of Atlantis in July 2011, these 135 flights became a defining era of human spaceflight, mixing spectacular achievements with two tragic accidents (Challenger in 1986 and Columbia in 2003).

Information gathered from public forums or data available on the internet and portrayed here.