There were six NASA Space Shuttle orbiters in total, but only five of them ever flew in space.

Quick Scoop

  • Six shuttles built overall :
    • Enterprise (approach and landing tests only, never went to space)
* Columbia, Challenger, Discovery, Atlantis, Endeavour (these five flew missions in orbit)
  • Five spaceflown shuttles : Those 5 orbiters flew 135 missions between 1981 and 2011, helping build the ISS and deploy Hubble.
  • Enterprise as a prototype : Enterprise was a full-size test vehicle used for atmospheric glide tests and was not equipped for spaceflight.

Simple breakdown

  • If the question is “how many space shuttles were there?” in the sense of major NASA orbiters that existed: 6.
  • If the question is “how many actually went to space?” : 5.

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